A Whateley Academy Adventure

Elle 1 - Dawn of the Aurora

by ElrodW

Part 1

 

More Whateley Academy fiction can be found at Whateley Academy main site

Hans rike for hennes hånde                               (His kingdom for her hand)
Kongen lengtes etter hennes bryst       (The king longs for her breast)
...
Kongen sover                         (The king sleeps)
Heksene vaker                       (The witches wait)
...
Sirkelen smidd i blodsed       (The circle bound by a blood oath)
....
Dvergene fester på øl og kjøtt                        (Dwarves feast on meat and ale)
På bryllupsfesten                    (At the wedding feast)
...
skjebne oppfylt                       (Destiny fulfilled)
...
Sirkelen løst fra sin gjeld            (The circle freed from debt)
...
...
Fragments of an ancient, nearly-lost epic poem
Den Sovende Kongen - The Sleeping King

 

Late August, 2006
Meraker, Norway

Like any normal teenager, Einar Arvid Ruud could stand to wait a bit longer for school to start. Summer in Meraker was wonderful, with the lakes, salmon fishing, hiking, and wilderness camping, and the thought of giving up that outdoor adventure for the boring classroom was almost intolerable. For a kid who loved the outdoors, it was heaven - unless the preference was for winter sports, but then again, Meraker was heaven for that, too. Einar's father worked at the Alpinsenter, a facility that was a summer resort and conference center, and in the winter, it was a haven for skiing, cross-country skiing, and ice-skating.

"I'll be back late," he called over his shoulder to his younger sisters, Sara and Thea, who were busy with some girls' game that interested Einar precisely not one little tiny bit.

"Dad said he wanted to talk to you at the center this afternoon," Sara, who at eleven years of age was two years younger than Einar, yelled after him, but she was a little late, and the sound of the door slamming was her only answer. She carefully scooted from behind the game board and raced to the door, flinging it open. "Einar!" she called after the boy who was already dashing away on his bicycle. "Dad wants to see you at the center!" She stomped her foot angrily. "Oooohhh! Dad's going to be furious!"

"He'll get grounded," Thea, the seven-year-old younger sister, said mockingly. "Come on, let's keep playing!"

* * * * * * * * * *

"Hey, Jonathan!" Einar called out as he pedaled faster to overtake another boy, wind blowing through his light brown hair. He was about average size and build for a boy his age, at least compared to his friends, and all his outdoor summer activities had given him a moderate tan and helped him stay quite fit. "Halvard! Wait up!" Einar had ridden a little over two kilometers from his home to meet up with his friends, but in the summer, bicycling was part of the joy of an outdoor life.

The two friends paused to look over their shoulders to see who was calling them, with Halvard wobbling a bit as he tried to wave while also riding and also looking over his shoulder. "Hey, Einar!" he called back, then scrambled to regain his course and balance, almost ending up falling over. Halvard Jakobsen was a year older and larger than Einar; if he'd had a scraggly beard and an axe over his shoulder to go with his rugged features, blonde hair, and blue eyes, he'd have fit the stereotype of a Viking warrior.

"Your sister called my mom," Jonathan said. "She said you're supposed to go see your dad at the center!" Jonathan Losnedahl was more average - dark brown hair and slightly shorter than Einar, but he seemed to always have a huge, infectious grin, as if life itself existed only to keep him amused or happy.

"I didn't hear it from mom or dad," Einar laughed as he rode between his two friends. "So ... it sounds like Sara is just messing with me!"

"You're going to get in trouble," Halvard cautioned his friend. "Again!"

"Mom'll bail me out," Einar chuckled. "Is it just us?"

Jonathan chuckled. "No. Silje and Ingrid are meeting us at the lake."

"Oh." Einar couldn't hide the disappointment in his voice; Silje was interested in Jonathan, and Halvard and Ingrid were sort-of a couple.

Halvard laughed at Einar. "Guess it'll be you alone, buddy," he chuckled.

"Well," Einar tried to be nonchalant, "it's easier to paddle a single kayak."

"Wasn't Katrine coming, too?" Jonathan asked.

"Nah," Halvard replied, stealing glances at Einar's face, seeing his eyes . "She's going on a hike and picnic with Martin."

"But ... what about Regine?" Einar blurted out, referring to Katrine's little sister, who happened to be one of his classmates. He was also quite interested in Regine Baardsson, which his friends knew only too well and which they razzed him about almost as much as he razzed them about their girlfriends. Not that Einar and Regine were exactly boyfriend and girlfriend. Not quite.

Halvard glanced at Jonathan, grinning from ear to ear. "I don't know," he tried to sound innocent, but he couldn't keep a straight face.

"She is coming!" Einar said with a scowl. "You ... ass!"

* * * * * * * * * *

"Wait up!" Einar called out as he scrambled across rocks in a small stream behind Regine. If Regine was half as pretty in a few years as her older sister, she was going to be a knockout, and Einar was more than slightly interested in keeping her close to him - at least until they went to college. Having a hot girlfriend wouldn't hurt his social standing.

The group of six teens had spent a few hours kayaking, and then Silje suggested they hike to a nice spot for a picnic; everyone had packed some snacks and light meal in a small knapsack, because they knew that their outings often spanned lunch or dinner - or both, since at that northern latitude, daylight hours were quite long.

"Keep up, slowpoke!" Regine giggled over her shoulder. Trying to be the gallant hero, Einar was carrying her knapsack, too, which slowed him down slightly as he was a little off-balance. "If you can catch me, I'll give you a kiss!" she teased him.

With a smile of anticipation, Einar skipped across a few wet rocks, then stretched himself and leaped across a large gap, intent on getting a reward for catching the dark-haired beauty.

Unfortunately for Einar, his foot slipped as he jumped, and instead of sailing across the water, his leg twisted and he tumbled. He reached out to catch himself, trying to break his fall, but he wasn't completely successful, and as he cried out, his head struck a rock and everything went black.

* * * * * * * * * *

When Einar opened his eyes, he was startled to see the muted light and colors of twilight instead of the blue summer sky and vivid green of the lands and trees and plants beneath it. He reached up to rub his eyes in disbelief, which didn't help.

Sitting up slowly, Einar was overwhelmed by confusion. It was daylight in the summer, but he saw a fading sun in a white-covered landscape more suited to winter. As far as he could see around him was white, with craggy mountain peaks and broad valleys. It seemed that he was sitting on a glacier or ice-field, and he shivered, but whether that was from cold or from nerves, he couldn't tell.

"I won't hurt you," a soft, female, soothing voice sounded from behind him.

Einar spun and saw a beautiful young woman - perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three - walking lightly across the glacier toward him. Her hair was stunningly white, with highlights of shades of translucent blues reminiscent of glacial ice, and she had stunning blue eyes with green and white streaks in them. As she moved and the wind teased her long, flowing hair, small pointed ears darted into and out of view through her hair, giving her an elfin appearance. Her skin wasn't alabaster, but was less tanned than his own, and she was lightly clad in what looked to be a medium blue wraparound skirt and a blue and white patterned clingy top that showed off generous curves. Despite the setting - sitting atop a glacier - she didn't look at all uncomfortable despite being so inadequately dressed.

"Who ...," Einar sputtered, still quite confused, "who are you?"

"I am called Aegloswen," the girl said easily in her delightful, dulcet voice.

"What ... why ... how ...? The questions were many, and Einar was trying to speak them all at once, resulting in a jumble of words.

The girl was close enough that she put her finger on his lips. "Shhh." She pointed upward, to a stunning aurora in waves of green and white and blue, dancing across the inky sky. "It is the dancing lights of the heavens," she said almost reverently. "It is a sign that you are the one." She turned and smiled at him.

"I'm the one WHAT?" Einar stammered.

"This is a truly beautiful realm, is it not? The dancing lights, the crisp air of winter, the beautiful blanket of snow covering the resting land. The eternal trees ...."

"Eternal trees?" Einar interrupted.

"The eternal trees, those that do not sleep with the land," the girl said with a smile.

"Ah. Evergreens."

"Ever ... green?" The girl pondered his words a moment. "Yes, yes. Ever green. I like that. It fits them well."

"What am I doing here?"

"You are the one. You are chosen by the ... great gods ... to be my vessel, so that I may once again walk the Earth," she said with a smile. "After countless millennia, I may finally awaken." She looked at his startled expression. "Your body is changing," she announced. "Otherwise the great gods could not have brought you to me.

"Your ... vessel?" Einar felt panic rising in his throat. "Like ... you're going to possess me?"

"Would you like to live for millennia, to be eternally young?" she purred into his ear. "To heal quickly when injured? To have power over snow and ice? To be attractive?"

"What ... what are you doing to me?" Einar stammered, backing slowly away from this stunningly- beautiful but obviously mad girl.

She strode boldly toward him with a hungry look in her eyes, as if she was stalking prey. "The dancing sky is a sign. We are to be joined." Her arms encircled him, and as he struggled, she leaned forward, her lips touching his, until his resistance crumbled under her extremely sensuous kiss.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Einar?" The voice sounded familiar and quite worried.

The boy struggled to lift his head and flinched at the powerful throbbing that reddened his vision with pain. "Wha ....?" he stammered, wincing from the pain that erupted from the tiniest motion of moving his jaw. Slowly, his eyes opened, and he saw a face - Regine Baardsson - looking at him with concern etched on her features. Her head blocked the sun from his face, with the result that a halo-like aura of light seemed to wrap around her head, giving her an angelic glow.

"What ... happened?" Einar managed to say. "I ... I slipped?" That was obvious; falling in the rushing cold water was the only explanation for his clothing being soaked.

Regine nodded. "You hit your head pretty hard on a rock," she explained. While her voice was soft and sweet, Einar noted that it wasn't as pretty as the voice in his dream. The voice of the elf-girl of the glacier.

"It ... hurts," Einar said bluntly.

"Do you think you can stand and walk?" Regine asked cautiously. "Or should we call a rescue team come to get you?"

"Help me sit up," the boy replied hesitantly. With his friends helping, he sat up slowly, wincing at the pain in his head; it felt as if he had been smashed with a sledge-hammer and was now being squeezed in a vise.

"I ... I think I'm okay," Einar said after a few seconds of wobbling visibly, but he knew he wasn't convincing any of his friends. Besides, his head throbbed intensely, and the bright sun added to the pain.

A jacket was draped across his shoulders. "This'll help you warm up," Jonathan explained when Einar tried to look up at him.

"But ... I'm not cold," Einar protested.

Jonathan, Halvard, and Regine exchanged uneasy looks; their friend had to be cold after being immersed in the runoff from mountain snow and ice. "We'll call a rescue crew," Halvard said determinedly.

* * * * * * * * * *

Mid-September
Near Støren, Norway

In a tiny, ramshackle cabin in a deep, deep valley, nestled almost against the lichen-covered rocks and moss of a steep mountain, an old, white-haired woman hunched over a steaming bowl brimming with foul-smelling herbs. She waved her hands slowly over the mist, chanting in old Norse in time with her hand-waves, peering deeply into the bowl. Gradually, as she focused, her features darkened into a deep frown. For many long seconds, she stared into the bubbling, steaming liquid, as if in a trance.

Finally, she leaned back, quite obviously lost in thought. Finally, after what seemed an hour, she leaned back from the rough wooden table and shuffled to a shelf that overflowed with stuff. It was hard to describe all the shelf's contents - ancient books, small vials and jars, various boxes and tins - and the item the woman took, a small, round, faceted crystal of some kind.

Sitting at the table, Gunhild Pedersdottir carefully, precisely placed the object on the table before her, and once more incanting in the rough but strangely lyrical tongue of the old Norse, she stared deeply into the crystal. "Helka Arud," she called out once the incantation had completed. "Helka Arud, I call upon thee."

"What business interrupts my daily workings?" a female voice sang out from the crystalline object.

"I beg your forgiveness for interrupting," Gunhild apologized sincerely, "but I was making a reading this morning."

"Is it important?" Helka asked, suddenly sounding quite curious.

"She has returned."

"Are you absolutely certain?" Helka asked, her voice suddenly uncertain and questioning. "You know he will know this too, and he will take it as a sign of the awakening."

"I read the signs. She is returning, and she will bring dark times for us," Gunhild said solemnly. "Unless ...."

Helka knew immediately what Gunhild was speaking of. "Call the sisters. We must act quickly, before her power grows too strong. We must find her. If she can be delivered, bound ...."

"The blood oath sworn by our mothers' mothers' mothers millennia ago will be fulfilled." Gunhild nodded knowingly. "He will have no choice but to release us from the oath and grant our favors."

"We will meet at the new moon to begin our workings. We must find her as soon as she appears. Call the others; it will take the whole circle for such a spell."

"Yes, sister."

* * * * * * * * * *

Meraker, Norway

"Well, Einar," Dr. Kjellsson, the older doctor who ran the clinic in Meraker, said, shaking his head at the boy, "see what happens when you lose your head over a pretty girl! You almost literally lose your head!"

Einar flinched, blushing. "It ... it wasn't ...."

The doctor chuckled in amusement. "Come now, Einar," he teased the boy, "I was young once, too, and I know how easy it is to get careless when you're focused on a girl. And Regine is an attractive young lady, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes, she ...," Einar started without thinking, then realized to his horror that he'd admitted what the doctor had teased him about.

The doctor shot him a knowing smile before turning back to the subject of the boy's health. "Is there anything else I should note? Is the pain lessening? Do you notice any dizziness or blurred vision?"

"The pain ... is almost gone," Einar said slowly. "And ...."

"And what?"

"Um," Einar realized too late that he should have kept his mouth shut. "I ... I had a ... dream, I guess," he mumbled. "When ... I think when I was knocked out."

The doctor frowned. "A dream during unconsciousness is not normal. Was there anything peculiar about the dream?"

"Er ... not really. I don't think. I ... I was on a glacier," he said hesitantly. "And ... a girl walked up to me."

The doctor chuckled. "You're a normal teenage boy. Of course you dream about pretty girls! There's nothing unusual about that!"

"Um, she was ... like an elf," Einar continued. "And ... she kissed me."

"I asked about unusual things like hallucinations, Einar," the doctor shook his head, still chuckling. "Not schoolboy fantasies!"

"Er ... um .... can I go now?"

"No," the doctor's mood changed instantly as he scolded the boy. "You have a serious concussion. You're lucky you didn't break your skull!" The doc shook his head. "No, you may not go right now. Your mom should be here soon."

"But ... my friends are waiting!"

"And I'll tell them that you're fine, and that you're going to rest for a few days, and that they aren't to bother you."

"But ...," Einar sputtered, visibly upset, "it's the last of the summer! In a couple of weeks, I'll be back in school, and then I won't have time for hiking and biking and such!"

"Would you rather I put you in the hospital?" the doctor threatened. "Or will you promise to follow my instructions and rest for a few days?"

Einar frowned. He knew the doctor was blackmailing him and was enjoying that power. "Okay," he grumbled, "but only because Mom and Dad would have a fit if you put me in the hospital!"

"Atta boy."

"So can I go home then?"

"No. I'll keep you here for observation for a while."

"But ...."

"But nothing. You have a severe concussion. I won't take any chances that you have internal bleeding that could be very serious. You stay - or you go into the hospital."

Einar sighed heavily. "Okay." He knew when he was beat.

"Good. My nurse will take you to a comfortable room where you can rest or watch TV. But you may not sleep. With a head injury, sleeping is the worst thing you can do while under observation."

* * * * * * * * * *

"Be quiet, Thea," Anna-Marie Ruud scolded Einar's youngest sister. "You know your brother needs peace and quiet to rest after his accident."

"Mom," the boy protested, walking strongly to her, to graphically display that she should let him alone, "it's been four days! I'm okay! You don't have to baby me."

"I'm just doing what Dr. Kjellsen told me," the attractive, stereotypically-blonde woman said. Even after three children, she had a trim figure - shapely enough that Einar's friends considered her a prime MILF, which really grossed him out. He never considered that they did that just to get his goat.

"But ... summer is almost over!" he protested.

"I'll make a deal with you," his mother replied. "You go to the clinic, and if the doctor says it's okay, then you can go out with your friends."

Almost precisely one hour later, Einar stepped lightly from the clinic, a happy smile on his face and cell- phone in hand as he dialed. "Mom?" he said when the connection was made, "Dr. Kjellsson said I'm okay now, so I can go do stuff with my friends."

"Are you sure?"

"Good grief, Mom," the boy protested. "Do you want me to go inside and take a picture with the nurse or the doctor to prove I'm here? Or have one of them call or text you?"

"Don't get sassy!" Einar's mom cautioned him. Her sigh was audible through the phone. "I suppose you can go. Just promise me that you won't do anything risky."

"But ...."

"Promise me. No kayaking or canoeing. No rock climbing. Light activities only, okay?"

Einar couldn't help but roll his eyes at his mom's hectoring. "Okay. Maybe ... Jonathan and Halvard and I will go hiking a bit." He didn't add that he'd already arranged with his best friends to go hiking, and the girls - Silje, Ingrid, and Regine - were joining them for a picnic.

"Just be careful."

"Okay." Einar hung up, and then quickly dialed another number. "Jonathan? Mo .... The doctor said I can go." He hoped that his friend had missed his almost-admission that he still had to ask his mom for permission, as if he was a little kid. "I'll meet you guys at the school, okay?"

"The girls want to go picnic at Funnsjoen Lake," Jonathan noted.

"Okay, we'll ride our bikes. See you in a few minutes." Einar straddled his bike and began to ride; he'd come prepared, and in hindsight, the fact that his mom let him ride to the doctor by himself indicated that she was already convinced that he was well enough for an outing with his friends. He shook his head as he rode; some days, his mom really surprised him with her understanding of what he, as a teenager, wanted to do.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Are you ready for school to start next week?" Regine asked as she and Einar walked, hand-in-hand, up a slope toward a rocky promontory which had a beautiful view of the lake and its surroundings.

"No," Einar replied, grumbling. "I missed four days of hiking and stuff because Mom was being paranoid."

"You did hit your head pretty hard," Regine reminded him needlessly. The young couple sat down on a rock, and Regine abruptly held Einar's head and kissed him. Far from protesting, the boy almost immediately overcame his surprise and reciprocated.

"What was that for?" he asked breathlessly when the kiss ended.

"For making me worry about you, silly," she replied before kissing him again. Abruptly, though, she drew back, staring intently at him.

"What?"

"Your .... your eyes," Regine said slowly.

"What about them?"

"Are they ... darker, maybe?" She cocked her head slightly, puzzled. Einar had very beautiful blue eyes - or had. Now they were a shade or two darker; it made no sense to her.

"I thought you wanted to kiss," the boy protested.

Regine stared another few moments, then shrugged and the teens resumed making out.

* * * * * * * * * *

Late September

The doctor leaned back, frowning, one eyebrow slightly arched. "This is ... puzzling."

"What's wrong with him?" Einar's mom asked, worried at she looked at her son.

"I feel fine," the boy protested.

"But your irises appear to be changing color slightly," the doctor countered. "What's baffling is that there aren't any other changes - your vision is normal, or possibly a little better than 20/20." He shrugged. "It's very slight. If I hadn't seen him the other day, I don't think I would have noticed."

"Is it something from his concussion last month, maybe?"

"Unlikely," the doctor replied. "It's pretty much impossible ...." he seemed lost in thought a moment. "No. It doesn't happen. Not with concussions. Otherwise," he added with a wry grin, "every other footballer would have his eye color changing all the time."

"Why did you pause?" Mrs. Ruud asked, one eyebrow arched, a frown on her features.

The doctor sighed, nodding slightly. "Very, very, very rarely, it happens spontaneously, but ...," he paused, thinking.

The mother's eyes narrowed as she frowned. "What?" she demanded, recognizing that the doctor was thinking about something.

The doctor shook his head. "I don't want to speculate and frighten you about something that's highly unlikely. I'll spend some time looking through medical journals to see if I can find more about cases like your son's. I'm willing to bet there's some ... nutritional deficiency." He sat back a bit. "We'll do some blood tests to make sure he doesn't have any underlying systemic issue, and I'll take a picture so we can watch this."

Twenty-five minutes later, feeling like he was a quart low on blood after all the samples the doctor took, Einar and his mom walked back out to her car. "I don't think there's any reason for you to stay home from school tomorrow," Mom said flatly.

"But ... I felt kind of ... light-headed," the boy protested. "Wobbly and woozy. My teacher said I needed to get checked out before I went back."

"So you got checked out, and the doctor said there's nothing wrong," Mom rebutted immediately. "Besides," she added with an impish grin, "if you stay home from school, you won't get to see Regine."

"Moooommmmmm!"

* * * * * * * * * *

Early October

"Mom!" Einar cried out from the bathroom, where he was busy with his morning routine. He was wincing, touching his ear through his matted hair, which he'd been trying to comb.

"What?" she replied from the kitchen, where she was packing her lunch for work. "What's wrong?"

"My ... my ears hurt!" Einar replied uncertainly.

"What?" In moments, surprised by his reply, his mom was in the bathroom. "What do you mean, your ears hurt? Do you have an ear-ache?"

Einar sighed, an uneasy expression on his face. "Not inside my ears," he complained, "my ears - the outer part! I ... I was combing my hair, like usual," he added, "and ... and when ... when the comb hit my ear, it hurt, a lot!"

"Let's have a look." She tsk'd her son as he flinched from her outstretched hand, and then he allowed her to brush aside his hair. "This is odd," she finally said, sounding more than a little concerned.

"What?" Einar fought the panic trying to tie his stomach in knots.

"Your hair - the roots." Her fingers danced through his mop of tangled, matted hair, letting her see down to his scalp.

"What about them?"

"They're ... white!" his mother reported. "And some of the roots look ... kind of light blue."

"What?!?"

She fingered her way through his hair, oblivious to the distressed look on his face. "Strange. Very strange." After a bit, she stopped and gasped aloud.

"What?"

"We're going to the doctor," she announced firmly. "Your ear ... it's like there's some kind of growth at the top. Like ...." She shook her head. "I don't know." She turned her head toward the bathroom door. "Dear, please call the school. Einar has to go to the doctor!"

"Okay," Einar's dad called from the kitchen. "I'll get the girls to school."

Almost an hour later, the doctor sat back, shaking his head just like Einar's mom had. "Very strange," he muttered to himself. "Very strange indeed."

"What?" Einar and his mom asked at the same time.

"Your hair follicles have changed pigmentation." He shook his head. "It's not unheard of to see a pigmentation change induce by physical stress to the body, but I've never heard of follicles producing light blue pigmentation." The doctor cocked his head to one side, a puzzled expression on his face. "It's not unheard of in nature. Several birds, like a peacock, for example, have blue and green iridescent feathers."

"You mean stress like his concussion?"

The doctor nodded. "It's documented to have happened." He shook his head again. "But ... blue?"

"What about his ears?"

"I would normally do a biopsy," the doctor said, but he didn't sound like he expected any conclusive results from that test. "But ... the growth is bilateral and symmetric. Both ears have the same growth, and they look like mirror images of each other."

"Do you have any idea what's happening to Einar?" his mom asked, definitely worried.

The doctor ignored the woman for a moment. "Do you have any other symptoms?" He saw the boy flinch, and then look worriedly at his mother. "Any other symptoms?" he repeated, slower and more firmly.

"Um, I'm not sure," Einar stammered nervously, with a bit of reddening to his cheeks.

"What do you mean, you're not sure?"

"Mom, can I ... can I ... talk to the doctor ... privately?" Einar asked his mother, blushing furiously.

"Most certainly not," the woman responded sternly, almost angrily. "You're a minor, and as your mother, I am responsible for you."

"Mrs. Ruud," the doctor replied to her, "Einar isn't a little boy any more, and just as you wouldn't expect your husband to be present for some discussions one of your daughters might have with a doctor, especially about ... sensitive subjects, you should give your son the same privacy."

The worried mother shot a glare at Einar, but then nodded to the doctor. "I suppose you're right."

"You can wait outside." After he watched her leave, the doctor turned back toward the boy. "Okay, what's on your mind?"

Based on his expression, Einar was still highly embarrassed. "Um, my ... my ... privates ... seem ... different. A little smaller," he mumbled, "and my ... nuts ... are ...."

"Show me."

Einar dutifully dropped his trousers and shorts, blushing bright red as the doctor examined him. "Hmmm," the doctor said to himself. "I can't really tell if there are abnormalities in your penis. Everything is within the normal range for a boy your age."

"My ... testicles ... feel weird. And ... not as sensitive," Einar reported. Seeing the doctor's eyebrows raise, the boy continued. "My friend Jonathan was goofing around, and he hit me there, like he sometimes does, but ... it didn't hurt nearly as much as it normally does."

"Okay," the doctor made a few notes. "Anything else?"

Einar winced again. "Um, yeah," he answered, pulling his trousers back up. "My chest is a little bit ... sore." He lifted his shirt. "Here," he continued, pointing awkwardly to his nipples while holding his shirt up so the doctor could see.

The doctor felt the area around the boy's areolae, causing Einar to blush even more. "Okay," the doctor said, leaning back. "You can drop your shirt." He stood and opened the door, gesturing Einar's mother back in.

"Well?" she asked, worried.

"I want to do another series of blood tests," the doctor responded. "And an MRI."

"You suspect something?"

The doctor nodded. He checked Einar's file. "In your last lab work, I had a genetic analysis done, based on new guidelines from the Health Ministry and a hunch I had. The analysis shows that you have what's called the Meta-Gene Complex."

"Which means what?" the worried mother asked, not at all happy with the turn the doctor's explanation had taken. Genetic anomalies usually meant trouble, sometimes very serious.

"Which means that Einar's symptoms might be a result of the gene complex activating. Which means he could very well be a mutant."

It was hard to say whose eyes bugged out further - Einar's or his mom's. "A ... a mutant?" Einar stammered, shocked.

"Can you cure it?" Mom practically begged.

The doctor shook his head. "Mutations can't be stopped or cured," he explained. "Simply having the meta-gene complex does not necessarily indicate that the complex will activate and that he will manifest as a mutant. There's no accurate test to see if a meta-gene complex has activated, so we'll have to watch for other changes."

"Like his eyes?" Mom asked, goggling. "And his hair?"

"And possibly the growth on his ears." The doctor pushed a button on an intercom. "Nurse, could you take Mr. Ruud to get an MRI?" After the nurse took Einar from the room to get his diagnostic image, the doctor sat down opposite Mrs. Ruud.

"What do you suspect? Why the additional tests?" Mom was getting more worried by his comments and now his seeming setup to have a private conference with her.

"I want to check his hormone levels, and also look for internal growth." He grimaced, not knowing how to say what he had to say. "Your son complained of decreased ... size ... in his genitals, and also of some sensitivity in his chest. In examining him, I noticed that his testicles seem to be ... either atrophying or re-ascending, and he has breast buds beneath his areolae."

"Which means?"

"Sometimes, when a child manifests as a mutant, there are some changes in his or her body. Einar might be one of those cases. His eyes are deeper blue, and with the unusual hair color, ear growth, and other changes, I strongly suspect he's changing."

"Into what?" Einar's mother had visions of him turning into some horrible half-human monster, and that fear came through loud and clear in her quavering voice.

"I don't know," the doctor admitted, "but if the tests show what I expect, then there is a chance that he'll manifest as female."

"Einar ... is changing ... into a girl?"

"Possibly. We'll have to wait and see. I'll try to arrange some more tests. If he is a mutant, then he should be tested by experts from the Health Ministry."

* * * * * * * * * *

Mid-October
Hell Stasjon, Norway

The boy couldn't help rolling his eyes when his phone rang; he stepped to the side of the small herd of people getting off the train that had come from Meraker. "Hello?"

"I just wanted to remind you that ...." Einar's mom began to give him instructions.

"I have to change trains," Einar rolled his eyes again. "I'm not a little kid!" It was so like his mom to be overprotective, even though he was a teenager - just barely. His birthday had been only three weeks ago, and Einar thought that now he was a teen, he should be treated more like an adult. His parents, though, didn't share his viewpoint.

"You haven't traveled by yourself before," his mom countered, chiding him a little bit. In her opinion, he was becoming a stereotypical teen, and starting to think his parents didn't understand anything. "I don't want you getting lost in Trondheim, or ending up on the wrong train and end up in Steinkjer or Lillihammer!"

"Mom, I've been on this train to Trondheim with you or Dad thousands of times before!" Einar protested, rolling his eyes yet again while he tried, but failed, to control his sarcastic tone.

"It wasn't 'thousands'," Mom patiently corrected, "and you were with your father or me. If your sister hadn't gotten sick and your father wasn't tied up in the board meeting at the resort, one of us would be with you. I just wish the doctor could have set up your appointment for any other day."

"I know what I'm doing, Mom," Einar sighed. "But if you keep interrupting me to tell me what to do, I'm going to miss the train to Trondheim!"

"Then you better get to your train. You have the letter from Dr. Kjellsen?"

"Yes, Mom," the boy said, accompanied by a sigh and shake of his head. "The train is on the other platform. I have to run." Before his mother could object, he disconnected and turned his phone off before shoving it into his pocket, already walking quickly. In a way, he was glad that his parents were both tied up - it gave him a chance to be a little independent, like some of his friends got to do. Maybe in some parts of the world, a teen didn't travel alone, but this was Norway.

His distraction caused him to bump into an old woman who was also on the train platform, but moving another direction. He looked up sharply, stumbling to avoid running the woman over. "Sorry," he apologized quickly. If his parents had been with him, he'd have been in serious trouble for letting himself get distracted.

The woman looked up at him, one eyebrow cocked and a cross expression on her wrinkled, ancient features, as if she was giving him the evil eye in retribution for his clumsiness. "Don't they teach young people any manners ....?" Her vitriolic rebuke cut off, and her eyes both narrowed as she studied the boy.

"I said I was sorry," Einar apologized again. "My mom called and distracted me." The excuse sounded lame, and he knew it, but he wasn't going to let the old bat chide him when it wasn't his fault.

The woman gazed long and hard at the young man, making him gulp nervously. She was white-haired, with a slight stoop to her shoulders, but her expression slowly became one of curiosity. Finally, Einar broke their locked gazes. "I've got to run to catch my train. Sorry, again."

As he scurried off toward his train, the woman shook her head slowly. "That boy felt ... strange," she muttered to herself. "But ... it can't be! It's not possible!" She turned from where the boy had disappeared and continued on to her own train.

* * * * * * * * * *

Later that day
Meraker, Norway

Einar stumbled off the train to the tiny station - if one could call it that - in Meraker. It was barely a wide-spot on the tracks, with only an automated ticket kiosk under a small roof, and a pair of elevated concrete platforms beside the train tracks. There were no other services besides a few parking spots, but that was enough for the people who commuted the seventy or eighty kilometers to Trondheim or one of its outlying towns. As expected, his parents weren't there to meet him; Dad was probably still in the meeting, he reasoned, and Mom would be tending his sister. That was fine with him; he'd ridden his bike to the station earlier that day, and could just as happily ride home.

On the way, he took a slight detour, setting his bike against a fence and practically leaping up the steps to a house. He couldn't help but tap his foot anxiously as he waited, but soon the door opened, and the girl who peered out brightened with a grin.

"How did your trip go?" Regine asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

"It was fine," Einar lied. "Well, kind of. They took a lot of blood samples and X-rays and scans, and then I had to repeat them for another doctor. And I talked to about seven specialists who I think were totally confused by everything."

"Come in." Regine stepped to one side, inviting the boy inside, not that it was an unpleasant afternoon. "Nobody else is home yet."

Einar didn't need a second invitation; with a huge grin, he slipped inside, and as soon as the door was shut, the girl launched herself at him, encircling his torso while she crushed his lips beneath hers. After a rather lengthy kiss, she eased herself back a half step. "If that's the kind of greeting I get, I think I'll miss more school!"

"Oh, pbthhh!" Regine mocked him. "I just haven't kissed you since last weekend!"

"Did I miss anything interesting today?"

"Not really," she said with a shrug. "Except ...." Her expression told Einar that something had happened, but she seemed reluctant to talk about it.

"What?" he asked bluntly.

She winced; she hadn't intended to tell Einar. "Just ... Lars and Jakob were being smart-asses again!" She gave a derisive snort. "You know them - they make fun of anyone and everyone they can."

"What did they say about me now? More about my hair?"

"No," Regine denied. Then she winced again. "They ... Lars was telling everyone ... that you're a mutant! That's why your hair changed color, he said."

Einar shook his head. "He's an idiot."

"Yeah, but ... with your ears," she delicately ran her fingers through his hair and brushed his ears. "And your hair," she added, looking at his hair, which was now white starting a little over three quarters of an inch from the roots, with some iridescent light blue streaks, or so it appeared.

"They tested me, and no-one said I'm a mutant," Einar said a little more defensively than he should have. "It's ... they think when I hit my head in August, the shock caused some biochemical changes, and that's why my hair is getting white."

"But ... your ears!" she protested. "They're ... not normal!" She saw Einar's reaction. "I think they're cute," she added quickly, "but you have to admit that they're not normal. Getting a concussion wouldn't cause them to grow like that!"

"I have to go back next week," Einar reported, his defensive reaction muted by Regine's gentle attention to his ears, which he had to admit felt very nice. "They ... they haven't said anything, but maybe ... all those tests will tell them something." He backed up a few inches from his 'girlfriend'. "Are you ... would you ...?" he began, not quite sure how to ask the question.

"Would I what?"

"Would ... would it make a difference to you if I maybe was a ... a ...?"

"A mutant?" Regine leaned forward and kissed him. "If you keep getting cute things like your ears and your eyes, then no!"

"What about ... your parents? Or the kids at school? Or ...?"

"Shhhh," she put her finger across his lips. "You're worried about things that probably won't happen." The cute girl followed up with another kiss, easing his fears a bit, or at least distracting him from worrying more.

* * * * * * * * * *

Molde, Norway

To any outside observer, the gaggle of women, mostly older, looked like a knitting or quilting club getting together socially; there were smiles and hugs as they warmly greeted each other at the train station like long- lost friends. After a few minutes, the ones with small bags extended the handles and rolled them, or picked them up to physically carry, and led by two bag-less women, they began to walk through the streets of the town.

One would have expected the women to take a cab; of the thirteen ladies, only four looked to be younger than forty, and six of the others were easily over seventy. But they walked with a determination at a pace that belied their years, easily keeping up with the youngest, who looked to be in her early- to mid-twenties.

"Are you sure your husband won't mind our gathering?" Gunhild Pedersdottir asked skeptically as the group entered a large house.

Anika Knudsen , one of the young women, smiled. "I ... persuaded him to spend the weekend in Jonathansend," she replied. "Even though he promised to not bother us, if he accidentally barged into our circle, he might spoil the entire working."

"I swear," Helka, one of the oldest of the women, chuckled, "you must have ensorcelled him, because he gives you everything you want."

Anika struck a sexy pose. "I didn't have to cast a spell on him. His normal desires give me all the power over him I could ever want!"

"Keep your spells ready," Ingeborg Heimdahl, another of the older ladies, chuckled. "Once your looks start to fade, you'll lose that power over him."

"Not likely," Anika laughed as she led the women through the house and up a steep staircase. "I took another apprentice - a cute young girl of nineteen that my husband uses when I do the tantric rituals. They think I don't know about them having sex, and I'm perfectly content to let them continue to think that."

Gunhild frowned. "Does she know?"

"That in exchange for learning the arts and working with me, I'm stealing her beauty and youth?" Anika laughed cruelly. "Of course not! If she did know, do you think she'd continue to serve me as apprentice?" She paused and unlocked a door, then cast a small working. The heavy wooden door creaked open. "You can leave your bags out here in the hall." She entered the room, taking a small candle in a holder, and with another minor working, lit it magically. In the flickering yellow light, Anika gave each of the women in her coven a similar candle as they entered, and when the last was inside, she shut the door again.

The room was larger than it should have been, a magic trick of warping its dimensions. In the center was a large, round oak table, with thirteen chairs surrounding it. One corner was filled by a hulking bookcase full of old, leather-bound tomes, some of which looked to be hundreds of years old. Along the wall opposite the door, a large workbench stood against the wall, a large rack of bottles and vials and small tins filling shelves above the bench, and drawers beneath the work surface.

"Sisters," Helka Arud intoned solemnly, "let us begin. This will take all of our power, and may take a significant time."

Nodding, the women took seats around the table, each setting her candles directly before her.

* - * - * -

Hours and hours later, the women sat back in their chairs as one, staring at an apparition that had materialized above the center of the table, a large, translucent head that turned slowly as if looking about the room.

"It is her," Sigrid Haakonardottir said in awe. "She is returning!"

The sisters all nodded as the head turned. The girl was beautifully exotic; her long, wavy hair practically shimmered white, with light blue streaks that seemed to glisten in the flickering candle-light. Her ears were pointed, elfin, and with her large, doe-like eyes, she had a cute, innocent appearance. Her eyes, however, were another matter - slightly almond-shaped, tilted very slightly toward the center, the irises were dark blue or black, with varying thread-like, semi-translucent lines of white, green, and blue radiating from the iris' outer rims toward her pupils.

Helka, the woman who was quite obviously the leader of the coven, nodded solemnly. "Which means if the ice queen is awakening, Dúrnir will awaken as well."

"And he will no doubt want to collect the debt of our grandmothers' grandmothers' grandmothers," Gunhild added. She cast a minor working, and a second image appeared beside that of the girl - a man with similar elfin features, but very dark skin and rugged features. He was older and balding, with a grizzled beard and a scruffy rim of hair around his head, streaked with some gray, and a scar ran down the side of his nose and across his left cheek.

"Seems a shame that such a pretty girl will be bound to Dúrnir!" a grandmotherly-appearing woman, Alva Solberg, said, shaking her head. "I'm sure my great-grandson would like to have such a girl bound to him."

"Bah!" one of the women said dismissively. "We know of the magic debt. We know what Dúrnir looks like. The question is where is the girl?"

"That's why we're here," Helka chided her. She looked at Anika. "Let us begin the workings to find her."

* * * * * * * * * *

Late October
Meraker, Norway

"Hey, how's our mutant doing?" Halvard called out to Einar as he walked with Regine between teasing.

"Just knock it off, okay?" Einar replied; he would have been angrier at Halvard, but with Regine present, he just couldn't be mad at anyone. She had that effect on him.

"Wait up, old man!" Jonathan was running to catch up to Einar.

Einar rolled his eyes; the newest nickname from Jonathan was sticking, and though he hated to admit it, with his hair being nearly completely white - except for the tips of the longer hairs and the ones with faint blue streaks, he did kind of look like he was old and gray. "I'm walking Regine home," he replied to Jonathan. "So ... no, I don't have time for whatever you're planning."

Jonathan flinched as if hurt. "I was going to suggest that we all go to Trondheim this weekend - if you can get permission," he protested with a pout. "Silje and Erica got permission to go! There's a concert Friday night, too! Silje's cousin works at the radio station, and they were doing some big promotions, so he can get us tickets!"

Regine's eyes widened. "Wait, Silje can get tickets? They were sold out less than two hours after they went on sale!"

"So we'll all go then! And if we stay at Silje's cousin's place, we can have fun on Saturday before we come back!" Halvard added.

"I've got to go to Trondheim Friday morning," Einar groaned, "so I probably won't be able to stay. I know Mom won't want to stay."

"Well, let's go talk to her," Regine said with a smile. "I'm sure she'll let you stay with the group while she comes home."

As soon as Regine and Einar were around the corner from the school, she pulled him close and kissed him. After a bit, she backed up, a hurt expression on her face. "Is ... is something wrong? Are you ... mad at me?" she asked, fighting tears.

"No, of course not!" Einar countered quickly. "It's ... it's complicated."

"Does it have to do with all of the changes?" the girl asked, pointedly running her fingers through his hair and dawdling as she brushed the pointier tips of his ear.

"Yeah."

"Are you going to tell me?" Regine looked hurt that he wasn't telling her, as if he'd betrayed a trust.

Einar grimaced. "Can ... can we wait until we're at my house to talk about it?" He saw her doubtful expression. "I promise I'll tell you ... everything." When Regine nodded, the two resumed the long walk to Einar's house, which was on the outskirts of the town.

No sooner had they closed the door behind them than Regine physically turned Einar to face her. "Okay, what's going on?"

Einar glanced at his sisters, then took the girl's hand and led her to his room. When he shut the door behind himself, he leaned against it and took a deep breath. "I've ... I've been to Trondheim several times in the past weeks," he explained needlessly. Regine already knew how often he'd been absent from school. "With all of the changes," he closed his eyes and steadied himself, "I've been seeing several specialists."

"Are you sick?"

Einar shook his head. "I think you better sit down." As soon as Regine sat down - on his bed, which was more than a little inviting, he grimaced. "I ... I ..." Finally, unable to find words, he shook his head, and then pulled his shirt up over his head.

Regine looked at him, then gave him a puzzled frown. His ribcage was wrapped with a wide elastic bandage.

"I'm ...." Einar shook his head as he began to unwrap the bandages. "The specialists - aren't doctors. Not medical doctors, anyway," he added. "I'm ...." He dropped the bandage on the floor.

Regine stared wide-eyed at her boyfriend, her mouth hanging ajar, at the small mounds on Einar's chest, capped by puffy little nipples. "What ...?"

"Halvard is right. I'm ... I'm a mutant," Einar admitted, wincing at having to admit it, but at the same time feeling a little relief that he could let someone besides his family know his secret.

"But ... those are ... you're growing ...," Regine tried to find words. "Aren't they?"

Einar nodded. "They think I'm growing ... breasts." He lowered his gaze, feeling his cheeks redden. "And ... I'm ... my ... the doctors say I might be ... turning into a girl."

"A ... girl?" Regine gawked at him. "How ... how much?"

"They did a lot of scans," Einar admitted, letting his shirt fall back down to cover his chest. "I'm ... I'm growing ... some internal ... things. You know - ovaries and that kind of stuff."

"How much ...?"

Einar reached into his pants and pulled out a rolled-up sock. With it gone, the front of his trousers had less of a bulge. "It's ... changing. Based on how much and how fast I'm changing," he admitted, "they think it'll take a few years before it's finished, but they think ... that I'll be ... completely a girl."

Regine's already wide eyes goggled even more. "You mean ... like, having periods and maybe someday getting pregnant and stuff? All of that?"

The boy nodded, obviously fighting tears. "I ... my face ... is getting ... softer. More girly. And my eyes ..."

"Your eyes quit changing a few weeks ago," Regine protested.

Einar shook his head. "Nope." He went to his dresser and got a small case. In a few moments, he'd removed contact lenses. "See?" he said when he turned toward her.

If the girl had been surprised before, she was almost dumbfounded. "It's like ...," she tried to say as she moved closer, until she was only inches from his face, staring deeply into Einar's eyes. "It's like ... almost like ... the northern lights ... are in your eyes!"

Einar knew her description was appropriate - it was exactly what his parents and sisters had said. His midnight-blue irises were streaked and smeared with translucent colors of whites, greens, and blues, with an occasional bit of red. "And ... they change."

"Change? How?"

"If you took a picture today and another one in a few days, you'd see that the lines are moving."

"Exactly like the northern lights." Regine sat back, almost overwhelmed at the enormity of what her boyfriend had admitted. "So that's why ...."

"They said I've got more female hormones in my body than male ones," Einar admitted. "And ... I ..." He shook his head. "Things ... are different. When we kiss, I mean. And ... sometimes I ... I can't control my emotions."

"Do ... things still ... you know, work?"

"Kind of," Einar replied cautiously.

Regine stepped forward and kissed Einar deeply. "Then you can still be my little elf boyfriend until you can't." She chuckled at his shocked expression. "That is what you're turning into, isn't it? An elf?"

Einar gulped and nodded. "Sometimes, I have dreams - about an elf girl. She's on a glacier, and ... and she kind of looks like ... like what I'm turning into. She says she's something called a Sidhe, and that ... that she's been dead for millennia, but now ... now her soul - or pieces of it - have found me."

"That ... sounds kind of scary."

Einar nodded again. "I talk to her, in my dreams," he said, "but ... when I ask her about herself, she gets ... confused. Like, like she doesn't know completely who she is or who she was or anything. But she said that ... I'm her vessel, that she's in me, and she can walk on the Earth again."

Regine tugged Einar until he was sitting on the bed beside her. "And ... and you're ... okay with that?"

"I don't think I have a choice," the boy said, fighting tears again. "The specialists don't think I do, either. They're specialists in mutations, and they think her soul is kind of grafted onto mine, and that shaped how I'm changing."

"If they're specialists," Regine had an idea, "can't they get rid of her? So you stop changing?"

The boy shook his head. "They had some magic users check me, and they said that if they could get her fragment out of me, it might kill me. It'd destroy her soul, too. So ... no-one is willing to try."

"Wow!" was all the girl could say as she stared straight ahead, hands in her laps, contemplating what Einar had told her. Then she turned and grasped his cheeks between her hands again and kissed him.

"What was that for?" Einar sputtered when she broke the long, very involved kiss.

Regine grinned. "Just seeing if you still like kissing me."

"But ... I ... I might be turning ... into a girl!"

"Maybe," Regine patted his crotch very suggestively, "but you haven't yet, so until then ...." She pulled him into another kiss.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Einar," Mrs. Ruud stuck her head into her son's room, interrupting his studies at his computer.

"Yes, Mom?"

"Can you put down your studies for a bit? We want to talk to you."

Alarm bells went off in Einar's head. "Um, I guess," he slid the keyboard back and turned his chair, facing his Mom. Not surprisingly, his Dad came into the room as well and then closed the door with a gentle click behind him. Einar read the nervous expressions on their faces and gulped. "Yes?"

"Um, we've been talking," Dad began hesitantly.

The boy had a sinking feeling that he knew what his parents wanted to talk with him about. "What about?"

Mom shot a glance at her husband, then looked back at her son. "With ... with what the doctors think," she winced, "is happening to you, we were wondering if maybe ...."

"If ... what?"

"If ... maybe it would be better for you to not ... cutting your hair so short, like you're used to doing."

"Why?" The boy was sure he already knew the answer.

"Because," Dad said quickly, "it would help hide your ears."

"And," Mom winced as she tried to figure out how to saw what she was thinking, "if ...."

"You think I should start growing my hair for when I turn into a girl," Einar snapped. "Is that it?" His parents flinched at his words and the tone in which he delivered them. "You ... want me to start acting girly because you're certain I am going to turn into a girl? You want me to be a girl?" He spun away angrily. "What's next? Are you going to get me girl's underwear? Make me start wearing makeup? Give me a new girl name?" Tears flowed down his cheeks.

Mrs. Ruud slipped up behind him, lightly putting her hands on his shoulders, but holding tightly enough that when he tried to shrug them off, he failed. "We don't want you to change into a girl," she tried to soothe him, "but ... but the doctors said ...."

"They're wrong!" Einar snapped again. "I don't want to turn in to a girl! I don't wanna be a girl!"

Mom squatted down beside him and pulled his head onto her shoulder, feeling the wetness spread through her shirt as it soaked up the boy's tears. "I know, honey," she said, gently stroking Einar's head. "But ... sometimes we don't have a choice. Sometimes things happen outside our control."

"I'm ...," he started to say, but quit when words failed him. "This is ... it's ... scary! I ... I don't know what to do!"

"Then remember that we're here to talk to you, and to listen to you, and to help any way we can," Mom reassured the boy.

* * * * * * * * * *

The boy sat on the glacier, staring off into the valley below, waiting. The object of his wait was soon present; the elvish girl walked to him, barefoot, across the ice with not a hint of discomfort. Einar turned as she sat beside him.

"You like coming here?" she asked.

"No," Einar protested, but weakly. "Why do you keep bringing me here, Aegloswen?"

"You think that I bring you here?" she asked, jaw hanging in surprise at his words. "I thought you came of your own accord!" She looked back down the valley. "I thought you liked coming here, and talking to me."

"But ... you're changing me!" the boy - or more precisely, the changing boy - replied. Here, he still looked like Einar had several months ago - not a bit of white in his hair, and his ears looking perfectly normal. "Who are you?" Seeing her confusion, he decided his question was inadequate. "Aegloswen, you said you would walk the Earth again. When did you last walk in a real body, in the real world?"

"It was millennia ago," the elf-girl answered. "I think. I'm not sure." She looked down the valley again. "Or am I just dreaming, and you're just a vision in my dreams?"

"You're not making any sense. Why won't you tell me anything? Who you were? Where you lived, your family and friends, where you got your powers? You ... you haven't told me anything about yourself."

Aegloswen stared at him, and her mouth opened to speak, but words wouldn't come to her, and after an awkward few seconds, she tilted her head forward into her hands. The sound of her sobbing was accompanied by her shoulders visibly shaking.

Einar's heart was moved with compassion for the girl; he pulled her onto his own shoulder, his arms wrapped comfortingly around her. "I ... didn't mean to upset you," he tried to reassure her.

"I can't remember!" she wailed softly. "I ... have dreams, visions, memories, but they're all ... fragmentary. They're all just ... bits and pieces, and I can't tell which are real and which are just ... illusions!"

She looked up at him, her big, innocent eyes moistened by tears. "I want to remember," she said. "But I can't."

"Tell me your dreams, then," Einar said in a soothing voice. "Maybe if you talk about them, it'll stir more memories, and you will be able to remember."

The girl stared at him for several seconds, and then she nodded. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For ... not mocking me. For listening." She lifted her lips toward his, kissing him again. When their lips parted, she leaned back on his shoulder. "I ... I think I had three sisters," she said hesitantly. "Or I dreamed I had sisters. And we lived ... near ice, and snow." A tiny smile flitted across her face. "Maybe that's why I'm so comfortable here - because I lived in the ice?"

"I dreamed of monsters, too," she added. "Terrible monsters, misshapen, evil creatures which ...." She broke off. "I ... can't remember more. Except ...."

"Except what?"

"A crown," she said. "I ... I think I dreamed that maybe my mother was a princess or something." She looked back at him. "And .... I am certain of one other name, although I can't think of why it's so important."

"What name is that?"

"Aunghadhail."

* * * * * * * * * *

Early November
Meraker, Norway

"What did you do, work out over the summer?" Per Lund, one of the boys on the skiing teams, asked Einar as a gaggle of boys paused to catch their breaths in the crisp morning air before they entered the school building. The team had a workout early in the morning before classes, before most of the teachers had even showed up. On nearly-freezing mornings such as that day, most of them wore at least sweat pants, if not sweatshirts.

"He went hiking a lot," Kristian replied, chuckling. "Except when he was trying to break his head open!"

"Very funny!" Einar shot back sarcastically. Unlike the others, he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and looked quite comfortable even on the cold winter morning.

The physical education coach joined the group outside the school before more teasing could occur. "Einar, I see your time has improved quite a bit. Very good."

"Suck-up!" Per snapped at Einar softly.

"If your skiing has improved as well," the coach ignored Per's little interruption, "I'd like you to think about trying out for biathlon team."

"Yes!" Grinning, Einar clenched his fist in front of his chest. Biathlon was what he'd wanted to do for years.

"Lucky shit!" Per said, roughly bumping Einar aside after Coach had left and they were walking into the locker room to shower before class.

Most of the boys stripped and went into the showers, but Einar simply pulled off his shorts and stashed them in his locker. Several of the boys looked suspiciously at him, but since showering wasn't required, nobody said anything.

"It isn't fair to compete with a mutant," another boy snarled unhappily as he wrapped a towel around his torso after stepping out of a shower. Einar recognized him immediately as one of the kids who, like him, had hoped to get on the biathlon team. "I thought that the coach and principal knew better."

"Hey," Einar snapped back, "I'm not a mutant!"

"Sure," Per said mockingly, as most of the other boys snorted derisively. "So how come you're not freezing dressed like that? How come your hair is white?" He stepped face-to-face with Einar, and since he was half a head taller and quite bulky in build, he was more than a little intimidating, and he knew it. With a sneer on his face, he reached for Einar's head. "How come you've got those ... fairy ears?" Einar tried to back away, but a couple of Per's friends had crept up behind him, and he was pinned against them.

"They're not fairy ears!" Einar shot back angrily. Despite feeling angry, he was also starting to get worried; Per's taunting had stirred up the others. And somewhere inside his head, the slight pressure he'd been feeling for several days increased sharply; fortunately it didn't feel like a headache, but it was a different sort of feeling he was unfamiliar with.

"Why aren't you taking a shower? Afraid we'll see that you're a mutant?" Per snarled. At his head-nod, the two behind Einar grabbed his arms, while Per yanked up Einar's shirt. He paused, and his eyes bugged out at the elastic wrapped tightly around Einar's chest. "What the hell?" he demanded.

"I ... I hurt my ribs," Einar lied, thinking quickly, while the pressure grew, "and the doctor said I need to wear the elastic for it to heal right."

"That should have slowed you down," one of the boys holding Einar's arms shot back.

Per stared at him for several seconds, while one of the boys turned on several shower heads. "Throw him in the shower," Per snorted. "Make sure it's real cold!"

Struggling against the two holding him, Einar fought back, determined to not cooperate, but Per and a couple of others joined in, almost physically carrying Einar into the tiled shower area, then pitching him, clothes and all, into one of the cold showers.

If they were expecting Einar to yelp or flinch from the cold water, they were disappointed, because he seemed to relax in the shower. Energy burst out from him as he somehow released the energy that had been building up within him.

Instantly, the streams flowing from the showerheads turned into giant icicles, while the water on the boys, in their clothes, on the floor and walls, indeed, all the water anywhere near the boy, turned into ice, and the mist in the air condensed into snowflakes that swirled angrily about the room, restricting visibility.

The half-naked boys who'd been manhandling Einar were suddenly shivering, covered with ice and with some of their feet frozen to the floor, while others slipped on the sheet of ice that had moments earlier been water. Einar, not in the least bit cold, backed away, then turned and fled from the locker room.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Mrs. Ruud," the stern but very attractive, young principal, Anja Næss, leaned forward, her elbows on her desk, "the ... incident ... this morning ... was unacceptable." She sat in her chair behind her desk as if it were a throne, making Einar and his mom sit across the desk in 'visitor' chairs, a sign of her authority that she often used to enforce her will. It hadn't taken long at all for Einar and his mom to be summoned to the principal's office. Most students hadn't even arrived at school yet.

Einar's mom sighed. "And according to Einar, he was bullied - again - about his changes. That is acceptable?"

"We have zero tolerance toward bullying, and are actively investigating all of the incidents that have been reported," Ms. Næss countered angrily. "We also have zero tolerance toward major disruptions and ... attacks on other students." She glared at the boy.

"I told you," he complained, sounding more than a little whiny, "I didn't do anything! It just ... happened." He had to focus his attention on some papers on her desk; Anja Næss was a MILF by any standards, and there was much locker-room talk among the boys about her. She was the object of more than one teenage fantasy. Right now, though, was definitely not the time to be fantasizing about the principal.

"Nevertheless," Mrs. Næss replied, "you caused a significant incident, and because of that, for the safety of the students and the maintenance of good order and discipline, I have to suspend you until you have a report from the Ministry of Health office in Trondheim that your ... condition ... is not a threat to the student body." She looked directly at Einar. "It's a shame that I have to do this, because your grades have shown a significant improvement over last year."

"Are you telling me that you are denying Einar an education right now?" Mrs. Ruud asked bluntly.

"I have to suspend him for the safety ...."

"I heard your pontificating," Einar's mom replied harshly. "And yet you did not suspend any of the students involved in earlier bullying and harassment, which also created a negative learning environment." She sat back in her chair, her head cocked slightly. "I'm sure that will look good on a report to the county government in Steinkjer, or the Ministry of Education."

The principal's nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed to slits. She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "Mrs. Ruud, I am responsible for the safety of all the students in this school, and until the government tells me otherwise, I have the discretion to suspend Einar if I think it necessary."

"But you will allow him to participate virtually in classes, won't you?" Mrs. Ruud appeared to be backing down a bit, but Einar knew his mom's strategy, having been the unwitting victim of her ploys on many occasions. First, a threat to try to rattle the other person, then de-escalation, followed by an offer of a 'reasonable' compromise. "If the medical tests that he's already scheduled for in Trondheim show him to be no danger to other students, then you wouldn't want him to fall behind in his education, would you?"

Ms. Næss started, arching her eyebrows. "Well, no...."

"And it is acceptable for students in ... unusual situations ... to be allowed to participate virtually, isn't it?" Mrs. Ruud had done her homework about education policy years ago when Einar first got into school - and into the first of his many little incidents.

"I suppose that we could allow Einar to participate in class virtually," the principal wavered in her determination, "since all the classrooms are set up with the technology." Thanks to the generous government revenues from Norway's offshore oil production, schools did not lack for money to properly educate students in the use of computer technology.

After getting his books, Einar trudged out of the school building as the remainder of students filed in to start their day. Regine's jaw dropped when she saw Einar leaving school with his mom. She dashed to his side. "What's going on?"

Einar sighed heavily. "Per and some of the others were teasing me," he admitted, "and ... they threw me in cold showers. I ... something ... happened." He shook his head. "I don't know how, or why, but ... something felt like it released in me, and all the water turned to ice."

Regine's eyes bulged as she gawked. "All the water? Even ...?"

"The showers were like icicles, and everyone who had a wet head had frozen hair. Towels, floor, walls - everything wet froze," Einar admitted. "So Mrs. Iron Bitch," Einar glanced toward his mom and got the glare of disapproval that he expected for referring to the principal in such a way, "suspended me until I get tested."

"You're ... suspended?" Regine gawked. "But ... she hasn't suspended any of the boys that have been bullying you!"

"You better get to class so you're not late," Einar urged her. "I get to participate through the Internet," he added. "And after my next appointment in Trondheim, I should be back in school."

Regine nodded. "Can I come by ... after school?" she asked, then saw Mrs. Ruud staring unhappily at her. "I can bring ... homework assignments and handouts and stuff that we cover in class, and ... I can help you study if you need," she added with a confident, almost superior, air about her, and a barely-suppressed smirk.

Einar nodded. "That would be nice."

Regine gave the boy a quick hug, then followed all the other students into the school building. Behind her, walking to the car, Mrs. Ruud looked at Einar.

"She's just going to help me study, Mom," Einar protested, knowing what his mom was thinking, or at least guessing - and pretty accurately, too. "Since ... since I started changing," he added hastily, "she's ... not really interested in me that way!" He looked down, suddenly morose. "And ... I ... couldn't do anything anyway. Not anymore." For some reason, perhaps the doctors' reports, she didn't look like she believed him.

* * * * * * * * * *

Near Støren, Norway

Helka Arud, Gunhild Pedersdottir, and Anika Knutsen, three of the members of the coven, huddled around a table in Gunhild's remote cabin. Since their meeting in Molde, the coven members had taken turns doing the spells necessary to locate 'her'. It was Gunhild's turn to host the weekly working.

"There!" Helka cried out as the complex working caused a strange-looking map to appear like a hologram on the table between the ladies. "She uses her power!"

Anika nodded. "It is the first positive sign!"

"But ... why is it so ... muddled?" Gunhild asked, expressing the concern that all three of the women shared. Instead of a clear, bright flash, it was dull and muted, nothing at all like they expected. Then again, it had been countless generations since the coven had seen the signs, so there was a possibility that they misinterpreted the old tomes.

"Is it a mistake?" Anika expressed all their doubts in that one simple question.

"It cannot be!" Gunhild replied sharply. "We have seen the signs. It was foretold that she would come. She is here!"

"We must find her," Helka stated the obvious. "Because the sign of her power is not clear, telling us only that she is somewhere to the north of here, we must find a way to get a better location."

"We must move the circle," Anika said resolutely, "and wait for her to use her power again. Then we can narrow down where she is. Each time she uses her power, we can move closer, more precisely narrowing her location, until we have her."

"Assuming she doesn't move around," Helka cautioned.

"Do we have another choice?" Gunhild asked. "When she comes, he will come as well, and he will demand payment.

* * * * * * * * * *

Mid-November
Trondheim, Norway

Mrs. Ruud looked at the doctors, back and forth, focusing on one and then the other, as they pored over notes on their tablet computers. Finally, she could take no more. "Well? Do you know anything?"

The two doctors exchanged a glance, then the female doctor looked back at Einar and his mom. "These test results are ... what we expected, based on his last examination," she reported. "His testosterone level is extremely low - in the normal female range."

Einar couldn't help but wince at the news, gulping at further confirmation that what he feared was happening.

"And his estradiol level is highly elevated, again in the normal teenage female range."

"Which explains the chest ... development."

"Breasts," the male doctor corrected Mrs. Ruud. "Einar is developing breasts. It is not uncommon for teenage boys to develop temporary gynecomastia during puberty; it usually resolves itself. However ..."

"But ... this isn't going to go away, is it?" Einar pouted.

"Not likely, no," the female doctor replied. "There are two types of gynecomastia," she began to explain. "Pseudo-gynecomastia, which is really fatty tissue accumulation in the area of the breasts, and true gynecomastia, which is development of the actual breast tissue. Einar's case is true gynecomastia, and with his hormone levels, indications are that it is not a temporary issue."

Einar lowered his head, sighing heavily as he closed his eyes. "So ... I'm growing boobs? And they aren't going to go away?" He looked up at the doctors in the hope that they would give him some assurance that things would be normal. They both shook their heads, dashing any meager hope that he had desperately clung to.

"And ... the other changes?" Mom asked.

"Highly unusual," the male doctor replied. "I'd like to examine Einar, to see how the changes are progressing."

Einar's mom knew it was time to leave the room, as usual during his increasingly-frequent medical examinations. This time, the female doctor stayed in the room. "Strip to your underwear," the female doctor commanded.

Blushing bright red, Einar followed her direction, and then sat down on the examining table. The woman focused on Einar's chest, at the growing mounds thereon. "I would like to palpate them," she said, to which the boy nodded.

Closing his eyes, thinking of skiing and outdoor sports as a much-needed distraction, Einar felt the doctor probing and feeling his chest, knowing that without clothes on, his nipples - now much larger than they had been months earlier - were erect in a quite embarrassing way.

"Definite breast buds," the doctor noted to her colleague. She pulled a small ruler from her lab coat pocket, and held it up against Einar's chest. "Areolae are ... twenty-two millimeters."

"That's a growth of three millimeters," the male doctor noted as he recorded the data.

"Please step on the scale," the woman asked, and Einar, clad in only his skivvies, complied. "Hmmm. You've lost another half kilo." Knowing what was coming, and not waiting to be directed, Einar turned so his back was against a measuring device. "And you've grown a half centimeter," the doctor stated after taking the measurement.

The male doctor frowned when he looked more closely at the boy. "Is ... something wrong with your skin?" he asked hesitantly. "Have you been scratching?"

"Um, yeah," Einar replied with a nod. "It itches. A lot."

"All over?" the woman asked as she looked at him. "Hmmm. It doesn't seem to be red on your face or neck or hands," she observed.

Einar nodded, then rolled down the elastic band on his underwear. The area beneath was quite red and irritated. "It's worst here."

The doctors scrutinized the inflamed areas for a while before their curiosity was at least dampened enough to move on. "I think we'll have to get some allergy tests."

"Okay," the female doctor said after squaring herself toward Einar. "It's time to examine your genitals."

"And your prostate," the male doctor added, which only increased the redness in the boy's cheeks.

Dutifully, trying hard to think of anything except girls, Einar dropped his shorts, and the doctors, after donning latex gloves, began to poke and prod.

"His testicles are definitely re-ascending," the one doctor said. "They're almost withdrawn completely from the scrotum."

"His penis appears to be smaller." The woman looked up at Einar, smiling apparently at his discomfort. "We'll skip measuring anything this time, but we will need to take measurements at your next visit."

"Are you still getting erections?" the male doctor asked bluntly.

Einar's skin turned redder than crimson, although he'd been examined frequently enough that he shouldn't have blushed. He told himself it was because of the female doctor. "Um, yeah, kind of," he replied softly.

"Have you noticed a change in size of your erections? Or frequency?" the woman asked very clinically.

Her extremely professional manner was the only thing that kept the boy from becoming a blubbering, humiliated, curled up ball of embarrassment. "Yeah," he mumbled. "Both. They don't happen ... as often, and I'm sure they're ... smaller." She made some notes. Then Einar got a prostate exam - from the male doctor fortunately.

"Did you notice something, Doctor?" the woman asked as the male doctor peeled off his latex glove from the intrusive exam. "His skin has a general irritation - only in areas covered with clothing, except beneath his underwear."

"Hmmm," the male doctor looked. "I wonder ..." He pondered the oddity for a few moments. "Let's do some allergy tests. I have a hunch. There are documented cases of people developing allergies to non-natural products - plastics, synthetic fabrics, and so on. That might be something you are experiencing - either because of or concurrent with your other changes."

"You may put your clothes back on," the woman interrupted. Then she looked him over once more, a curious expression on her face. "You don't look like you're chilly!" she observed.

"I'm not cold," the boy reported as he pulled his trousers back on. "It's funny - I haven't felt really cold since ...." He shook his head. "I don't know, since ... I hit my head." Seeing the puzzled expressions on the doctors, he explained, "I've been out very early in the morning running with only shorts and a T-shirt, and I haven't felt cold. I was thrown into a shower that was cold, but I wasn't uncomfortable at all."

"Interesting." The woman made more notes. "Anything else?"

"Yeah," the boy admitted hesitantly "My ... hips ... kind of hurt."

"Hurt? How?"

"Like ...," the boy sought a suitable description for the feeling. "Like, when I had a growth spurt. It feels like that, but it's only in my hips."

"Okay. Let's get X-rays, and while we're in radiology, let's go ahead and get a mammogram," the female doctor said. Seeing him goggling at her, she smiled. "You get to be one of the very few men who understand why a woman complains about a mammogram."

* * * * * * * * * *

"I have to keep track of what I wear and how much it itches," Einar grumbled as he and his mom sat in another doctor's office, although this was far from a regular clinic. Instead of standard medical equipment and an examining table in a small office, this space was large, with some odd crystals, and several alien-looking contraptions hanging on the walls. Unusual machines and gear squatted on the floor.

After Mom and Einar had finished with the doctors and with lunch, they had come to this place, to another appointment with a specialist who focused in mutations and powers.

Across the room, reading a file of reports that Mom had brought from the regular doctors, a man who looked entirely too much like the eccentric Dr. Brown from "Back to the Future," with his whitish hair unkempt, in an unbuttoned, white lab coat with a few grease stains, and wearing a very strange pair of what appeared to be Steampunk goggles, muttered to himself as he occasionally consulted his computer. "Ah, okay," he mumbled from time to time.

"Okay," Mom answered Einar. "Do they have any suspicions?"

"Yes, they think I may have developed allergies to some synthetic and man-made materials. Evidently, it happens sometimes. And I have to experiment with being outside and in cold showers and baths to see what my tolerance is," he added.

"Very interesting," the mad scientist, Doctor Sjurd Holgersen, said before dropping the file noisily onto he desk / workbench. He turned toward Einar. "Well, I have a ... theory ... to test," he announced. "But first, let's do some preliminaries. Please go to the weight bar," he indicated a bar with no weights, but which was attached with thin cables to various other points of the bizarre-looking machine. "We'll test your strength first."

Einar's upper body strength was tested doing a variety of exercises at the contraption, all the while the doctor fiddled with knobs to adjust the resistance and read the results. Then he pulled a bench over, had the boy sit, and had him do some leg exercises to measure his lower body strength. A very strange contraption with a VR helmet tested Einar's reflexes, while a heavily-modified treadmill tested his speed. Then the doctor did some kind of psychic tests, which apparently Einar failed miserably.

Then the crystals came down. As Dr. Holgersen held the first toward Einar, it began to glow soft green, gaining intensity as it got closer to him. The doctor waved other crystals around Einar, saying 'hmmm' a lot as he observed the results. "Okay, you said you made water turn to ice?" He got a glass of water from his workbench. "I want you to focus on this water, trying to turn it into ice, like you did in the locker room."

"But ... I can't ...!" the boy started.

"Do it!" the doctor commanded impatiently.

With a shrug, Einar picked up the glass and concentrated on its contents, thinking hard about the water turning to ice.

The pressure inside, which he'd felt off and on, suddenly burst forth, and the water instantly froze so quickly that its expansion shattered the glass it was in. Einar jumped in shock at what had happened, while his mom goggled at him.

Doctor Holgersen wasn't looking at their reactions, but instead focused on a curious array of three crystals he was holding, all of which were glowing. After noting something about their various glows, he set them down, then noticed for the first time the shattered glass. "Oh, my! I didn't think you'd do that!" He took the ice from the boy and tossed it into a shop sink in a corner of the lab, then grabbed a broom and gave a desultory sweep to get most of the glass shards out of the way - at least for the moment. "I wonder ...." He filled another glass - a paper one this time - and handed it to Einar. "Focus on making the water hot."

This time, nothing happened. The doctor's crystals didn't glow, he didn't feel any pressure build and release, and the cup of water stayed a boring, room-temperature cup of water. The doctor took the cup, and after feeling its temperature, drank it and tossed the cup away. "Okay, there's one more thing." He turned on his chair and rummaged through a drawer, finally finding a metal bar of some kind. "Here, hold this," he said, handing the bar to Einar.

With a shrug, Einar took the bar. Instantly, his hand burned in pain, and the bar clattered to the floor as Einar stared at the reddened palm and fingers, some of which were starting to blister. "What the hell ...?"

The doctor turned back to his computer and typed frantically. "Okay," he finally said, "I know what's going on here, at least some of it."

"What?" Mom and Einar asked after a few seconds of silence, during which the doctor was fiddling more with his computer.

"Oh," Dr. Holgersen answered, as if realizing that they were waiting for him to say something. "You are definitely an active mutant," he said to Einar, which elicited a gasp from his mother. "So far as I can tell, you don't have enhanced strength or reflexes, so it's unlikely that you're an exemplar. I don't have the equipment to measure whether or not you're an avatar, which this 'voice' that speaks to you in your dreams might suggest."

"So ... what's he changing into?" Mom asked, her worry-meter pegged anew. "He is changing, right?"

The doctor nodded. "Based on what I see of physiological changes, with the apparent reaction to synthetic materials, you," he spoke directly to Einar, "seem to be mutating into a Sidhe, a ... mythical ... race of elf- like humanoids."

"If they're so mythical," Einar shot back, "then how come I'm turning into one?"

"Good point," the doctor smiled. "But there are a number of mutants who have manifested as ... as what the experts believe are Sidhe," he continued, ignoring Einar's question, "and they have the characteristics you are developing - pointed ears, allergy to synthetics, and especially, as we just confirmed, allergy to cold iron."

"You could have warned me," Einar grumbled angrily.

Dr. Holgersen ignored him. "Your ... ice and snow power is strongly correlated with the use of magic, which is a little peculiar. I thought it was an energizer trait, but you don't show any signs of that." He bit his lower lip and stared over Einar's shoulder, his eyes unfocused. "Unless .... You haven't had any magic training?"

"No."

"And yet ... you manifested these magic effects without trying?"

Einar shrugged. "I guess...."

"This wouldn't be the first time that a Wizard-class mutant has an affinity toward a 'natural' spell, one that he or she can do without trying. You might have that ability." He turned back to his computer. "I'm putting together a list of some reading material for the boy. They have some exercises he can do to learn to control his magic, but that's only a stop-gap measure. He's going to need to learn true control, which will require a magically-trained tutor or a special school."

* * * * * * * * * *

Einar, now looking more and more female like Aegloswen, peered down from above on the scene as if a ghost watching some spectacle. Beside him, Aegloswen hovered as well, holding his hand and looking rather uneasy.

Hundreds of Sidhe - that's what Einar had assumed they were - were gathered in a light, airy, stone and stained-glass palace or cathedral-like building, standing like the triumphant final scene of Star Wars: A New Hope, where all the rebels stood in the massive gathering hall. The scenes on the glass were all winter- related - snow, skiing or some variant thereof, hunts in the snow, some important Sidhe woman standing beneath an Aurora, and more. It was not clear whether the building was a church or a palace; if a church, then the closest equivalent Einar could conceive of was that the stained-glass panels depicted important events in the Sidhe religion. If a palace, then past kings and queens were immortalized in the panes.

Einar tried to estimate the number by counting a small section of the hall, and then guessing how many such sections there would be, but the number he got was simply unbelievable; there was no way that a stone-and-glass palace such as this - airy like a Gothic cathedral with flying buttressed, high-arched walls and ceilings - could hold thousands and thousands of the elves, and yet it did. Old, young, male, female, they all crowded, standing, watching and waiting for something.

"What is this?" Einar whispered to Aegloswen softly. They were up by one of the arches, in a place that would most likely be unseen if anyone happened to look up, but no-one below seemed to want to.

"I ... don't know," Aegloswen replied sadly, shaking her head. "It ... feels familiar, but ... I don't remember."

On a high dais at one end stood two massive, gilded chairs, and several elves stood around them, one young woman front-and-center, while another, younger woman - girl, really - stood back and to one side. If expressions meant anything, the young girl was angry about something.

At the sound of melodious chimes, the people all turned toward the back, and in a rippling wave, they knelt, bowing their heads, as three very regal women strode imperiously down the aisle, the one in the middle wearing an ornate tiara and looking like she ruled the realm and everyone should bow before her. She barely acknowledged the crowd as she strode majestically down the aisle, until she came up the stairs to the elevated dais, directly to the woman in the center. The two were turned, so both profiles could be seen by the crowd in what was obviously some formal affair.

"I grieve with you, Daughter," the newcomer said to the woman. She leaned forward, hugging the woman, and speaking some words that were not audible, and then she straightened again. In the meantime, the attendants who'd accompanied the queen picked up pillows or covered trays and stepped behind the queen.

The woman on the dais nodded at the Queen's words, then wiped tears from her eyes. She knelt before the queen, who took something from one of her attendants. "By this crown," she said loudly and clearly, "you are Queen of the Ice Realm, Daughter of the Aurora, Seventh of the Nine Queens of the Courts." She placed the crown upon the head of the kneeling woman, then the standing queen took another item from her other attendant. "By this scepter, you are Keeper of the Frost Crystal, and are given power to rule this realm on behalf of the Nine Queens and the Five-Fold Courts."

The people, standing again, erupted into thunderous applause as the newly-crowned queen, looking a little shy at the responsibility she'd just been given, rose to face the people. To her side, a couple of steps behind her, the younger girl stood, trying her best to look happy, or at least neutral, but it was clear she was angry or jealous or some combination thereof.

"Ninimeth!" Aegloswen exclaimed softly.

"What? Is that one of the women?"

The elf girl beside Einar shook her head. "I ... I can't remember why, but ... that word is very familiar." Moments later, the scene faded, and Einar and Aegloswen were again seated on the glacier under the dazzling aurora. "I ... can't remember what that means," the girl slowly admitted. "I want to remember, but I can't!" She was nearly in tears out of frustration, so Einar leaned closer and clutched her tightly, pulling her head against his shoulder.

* * * * * * * * * *

Mid-December
Meraker, Norway

Harald Ruud glanced up from the tablet on which he was reading the morning news. "You don't have to do this right now," he said to the boy. "Ms. Næss said you can keep attending school through the computer."

Einar sat at the table, picking at his breakfast. "I know," he grumbled, "but ... I have to go back."

"You do know that the boys and girls will probably tease you a lot," Einar's Mom cautioned him. "You don't exactly look like you used to."

Einar pouted. "You mean I don't look like a boy anymore," he grumbled.

His words were painfully accurate; his hair no longer had even a hint of brown, but was all white with the translucent, iridescent blue streaks, and upon recommendation from a counselor a couple of months ago, he'd quit trying to keep it in a masculine cut and just let it go, which meant it now looked androgynous. His eyes were almond-shaped, seemingly larger, but that was because his face was slightly smaller, finer, and much less ruggedly masculine, and with his weight loss and rounding of his body, there was no way anyone could mistake his body for male. On top of that, he found, to his dismay, that his chest had swollen enough that he really needed to wear a bra, and even then, small tell-tale bulges showed through his shirt. And if that wasn't humiliating enough, his private parts were still shrinking; Dr. Holgersen estimated that in a year or so, he'd have no trace of male genitalia, and a year or so after that, he could expect his developing female organs to begin that special rite of passage of girls into womanhood, menstruating.

"Some kids, like Per and Katrine, will tease you pretty badly," his dad cautioned. "Maybe you should wait until after the Christmas break to go back?"

"Besides, Silje and Regine come by to visit all the time," Mom added. "It's not like you're a hermit!"

"But ... they treat me like I'm ... weird! I used to kiss Regine," he protested, "and now she give me 'friend' pecks on the cheek and girl hugs like all the girls do, and she wants to talk about what it's like changing, and what I think of fashion, and stuff like that!" He shook his head. "It's ... it's weird!"

"I agree with your dad," Mom said. "You should wait until after the Christmas break."

"Okay," Einar grumbled. "I guess." Inside, he celebrated a tiny bit - the thought of facing all his classmates now that he was turning into a girl was frightening.

"Oh, and before I forget, Sara told me what you did to her bath last night. You're grounded for a week, and no visitors for three days."

"What did he do?" his dad asked between bites.

"Einar, tell him."

"I ... made an iceberg," the boy muttered.

"That's not so bad."

"Tell him where!" Mom commanded

"In ... Sara's tub," the boy muttered.

"An ... iceberg ... in the tub?"

Sara was beside the door, putting on her jacket. "He made the water freezing cold!" she cried out. "I couldn't take a bath in it!"

"I didn't do it while she was in the tub!" Einar protested.

Harald Ruud shook his head. "That's ... that wasn't very nice," he forced himself to say while he struggled to keep from smiling or chuckling at the prank. After getting 'the look' from his wife, he schooled his expression. "I agree with your mother - that wasn't very nice."

"Does that mean I don't have to go to Trondheim on Friday?" he asked hopefully.

"No, you'll keep your appointments. But apart from that ..."

A horrifying thought occurred to Einar. "But ... Silje and Katrine and Regine and I were going to a concert in Trondheim Saturday night!" he protested.

"You should have thought of that before you decided to play with your powers!"

"But Mom!" Einar complained, "Dr. Holgersen said I have to use my powers, so we don't have another bunch of ... what did he call them? The ... little white snow-bunnies with fangs that happened last time?"

"Hobgoblins," Mom sighed. "True, we don't want more of those."

Dad looked up from his tablet. "Let him go to the concert. Just not being able to talk to the girls during the days will be punishment enough." He got a wicked grin. "Or maybe ....!"

Einar goggled at his dad; he knew what that look and tone of voice meant. "What?"

"Maybe to punish him, you go with him and the girls early Saturday and go shopping in Trondheim!" Dad chuckled. "With his friends and Sara and Thea!"

"I like that idea," Einar's mom said, a wicked grin creeping across her features. "We can go get your hair styled, and maybe get manicures, and ...."

Einar groaned, letting his head sink down onto his crossed arms on the table. "Oh, shit!" he mouthed softly.

* * * * * * * * * *

Gunhild picked up her phone on the fourth ring. "Hello?" she said, not hiding her impatience at the interruption.

"Gunhild? It's Judit. Call Helka as soon as you can!" the voice on the other end said urgently.

"Why? What's going on?"

"We got a hit! Margrethe, Ulla, and I caught her using her power."

"Where were you when you did the reading?" the old woman asked, shuffling to a table that had a map taped to it.

"We were in Molde," Judit reported.

"And the direction?"

"East-northeast."

Gunhild put a pie-shaped wedge of translucent colored paper over the map, centered on Molde. "Well, that helps some," she said unenthusiastically. "She could be in a thousand square kilometers, including across the border in Sweden!"

"What are we going to do if we find her in Sweden? I don't think the Swedish government will look kindly on us

"And we're assuming that she isn't moving," Gunhild grumbled. "The way this is working, we're just going to have to get lucky to catch her using her powers. She's obviously not entirely in this world yet. Unless ...."Her voice trailed off as she speculated about something.

"Unless what?" Judit asked, quite curious at the older woman's pause.

"Unless we summon her!"

"What?" Judit stammered, her jaw quite obviously having dropped at the suggestion. "Summon - her? You're joking, aren't you?"

"No. It will be a very complex working, and it will take time to gather the essence, but I believe we can do it."

"But ...."

"But the alternative is not pleasant to contemplate. What do you think Dúrnir will do to us if he comes to collect his debt, and we don't have her bound to give him? What then?"

"I ... I don't know," Judit answered hesitantly.

"Yes you do," Gunhild countered sternly. "We all know. He will take one or more of us. He will bind us. He will enslave us to him," the old woman explained what didn't need to be explained.

"But ... most of us are old!" Judit protested. "He would not be ...."

"He wouldn't care! He knows our magic. He will sacrifice as many lives as necessary while he forces us to do what Anika has been doing - to steal youth and beauty, so that we will be young, beautiful ... sex slaves ... to him - forever. And when we grow old and he no longer appreciates our looks, he will do it again ... and again, and again, and again. The blood of thousands will be on our hands to satisfy his insatiable lust."

"But ...."

"Silence! You know I speak the truth! You have heard the old tales, handed down from generation to generation by our mothers."

There was a hush on the phone line. "I know you're right, Gunhild," Judit admitted. "I'll call the others. I know we'll have to do a lot of rituals to gather essence for a feat this large."

Gunhild nodded, even though Judit couldn't see her. "It may take us two or three months to prepare, but the alternative ...."

"Agreed."

* * * * * * * * * *

Before Christmas
Meraker Alpinsenter, Norway

"Tell me again why we're here," Regine grumbled to Einar as they rode to the winter sports center where Einar's dad worked. It was, as expected, cold, and there was some snow on the ski slopes; with the coming Christmas break, the center would be busy. Maybe. As Einar's dad pointed out, there were places where the snow was sparse.

"I have to help out a bit, or the center will have to close some trails just at the break," Einar replied.

"Help out?" Silje, riding on the other side of Einar, asked. Lately, the three had been like the Three Musketeers, always together, it seemed.

Einar nodded. "Yeah. They need some snow on some cross-country trails. Or else, they'll close some trails, and my dad won't have as many hours to work."

"But ... the snow machines!" Regine countered.

"Don't cover the cross-country trails, or the upper slopes in some areas," Einar completed her thought. Unlike Silje and Regine, who wore winter jackets, gloves, and hats, Einar wore only a light jacket and he didn't need mittens or gloves. His hair was longer, though not as long as either girl, and with the styling he'd undergone, under duress from his mom, sisters, and the girls, he looked more feminine than masculine. His features had continued to slowly soften, and his chest to grow; the elastic bandage was barely keeping the bouncing under control. He had managed to keep his sisters and Regine from dragging him into a lingerie store during that infamous Trondheim outing; fortunately for him, his mother and Silje hadn't observed the little 'discussion'.

The trio parked their bikes and walked around the main building - which housed an ice arena, to a work and maintenance building. "Hello?" Einar called as they walked through a large, open garage door. Even his voice was changed, but it had happened so slowly that neither his friends nor his family had noticed.

One of the workmen at the center stuck his head out of an office area. "Einar?" He immediately recognized the boy. "Your dad said you were coming again today."

"Yeah. Where to?"

The man led Einar to a wall-mounted map. "How much do you think you can do today?"

Einar thought. "It's pretty humid, and I haven't done any exercises for a couple of days, so ... probably about a soccer field."

The man, Ole Torgersen, scratched his heavily, gray-streaked beard a bit. "Can you control your snow to a narrow trail?"

Einar shrugged. "I don't know. I can try."

"Let's see if you can lay down snow on cross-country trail 2," he pointed to the map, "here. Snow has been light, and it's not ready for skiing yet."

"That works."

"Okay. I assume your friends are going to go out with you?" Seeing the boy's nod, Ole shrugged. "Okay, I guess. Give me about a half hour to finish some important orders, and then I'll drive you out."

"I can do that," Einar protested. "I know how to drive the small snow-cat."

"I don't know ...."

"If you have to go, we'll lose daylight, and you won't be able to finish all your orders and records and stuff! But I can drive, so you can keep working here!" Seeing the hesitancy in the older man, Einar pressed. "I know you've been working on a few of the snow makers around the red lift, so you can do that, too, while I'm on the cross-country trail! If you have to drive me ...."

Ole sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Okay," he finally relented. "Just be careful."

"I will!" Einar replied eagerly. "You know I will."

Minutes later, Einar drove the small, tracked snow-cat away from the center into the woods, following a well- marked trail.

"I didn't think you were going to talk him into that," Regine laughed loudly to be heard over the engine and the wind. Unlike its big brother, the small snow-cat didn't have a cab - just a windshield and seats. The two girls were hunched down to keep their faces shielded from the cold breeze, but Einar was sitting erect, face in the wind, relishing the cold as it whipped his hair around.

"I can't believe you're not cold," Silje said, shaking her head in disbelief. "The way you're driving, it's freezing!"

Einar just grinned. "It feels great!" he cried aloud.

In minutes, they were at an area where the snowpack on the trail was lighter than it needed to be; years of hanging around the maintenance shed with older workers and with his dad, and skiing, had given Einar a lot of insight into good versus bad snow conditions. He shut off the snow-cat and climbed down. "I'll do some snow here," he explained to the girls, then walked around until he was in the center of the area that needed the additional snow.

"How do you ...?" Silje started to say, then her eyes widened and she began to look around in awe. Snowflakes were crystalizing from the moisture in the air, condensed from the humidity by Einar's power, falling around the trio like a good snowstorm.

"As long as there's a light breeze," Einar said, still focusing on his power, "more moisture in the air comes into range of my ... magic, and I can keep making snow. It stops when I run out of magic energy, or when all the moisture in the air has been condensed out."

"This is really, really neat!" Regine said, dancing around in the snow like a child. On impulse, she scooped up some snow and tossed it at Silje. In seconds, the two were throwing the white, fluffy snow all around themselves, giggling and laughing and playing.

Glancing at Regine, who was at that moment scooping up snow to toss at Einar, Silje scooped up some snow, found it was a bit moist, and compressed it into a snowball. "Hey, Regine!" she called, and as the girl spun, Silje threw the snowball at her. Regine managed to duck, and it hit Einar in the back of his head.

"Hey!" he exclaimed to the giggling girls, surprised enough that the snow stopped. "If that's the way you want it ...."

Silje's and Regine's eyes widened when Einar focused on them, and immediately, the snowfall increased drastically and a wind whipped up, driving the snow at the girls like a miniature blizzard. "How do you like that?" Einar challenged them as they ducked away from the howling wind and stinging snowflakes.

"Okay, okay!" Regine yelled, her voice muffled because she had turned away from the wind and buried her face in her hands to shield out the blowing snow. "We give up!"

Chuckling, Einar relaxed the wind, and the snow resumed its gentle fall, at least gentle compared to the tiny snowstorm he had unleashed.

"Next time we have a snow fight, I want you on our team!" Silje chuckled.

"How do you do that?" Regine asked, laughing at the silliness of the whole situation and also in awe of the power Einar had displayed.

"I ... I don't know," Einar admitted. "It ... just happens! Dr. Holgersen ..."

"Dr. Holgersen? Is he one of the specialists in Trondheim?"

Einar nodded. "He's a specialist in mutants. He said it's kind of a built-in magical ... power. Like ... like ... I don't know how to describe it."

"Like breathing? Something you just do without knowing that you even do it?" Silje proposed.

"Yeah, like that," Einar nodded. "There's some ... energy ... that just builds up, and I have to let it out, or ... bad things happen."

"What kind of ... bad things?" Silje gulped nervously. The way Einar had spoken worried her a little bit.

"The ... essence, Dr. Holgersen called it, releases when it builds up too much and I can't hold it, but if I just let it go, it comes out kind of unpredictably." He grimaced at the memories. "They're called 'hobgoblins' - little self-contained bundles of energy that ... are kind of wild. One time, the hobgoblins looked like ... little bunnies with fangs. They ... caused a lot of trouble before they evaporated."

"Little bunnies - with fangs?"

"Snow bunnies. Another time, they were little green furballs that ran around kicking and biting everything in sight."

"Snow bunnies? And green furballs?" Regine snorted, then broke out laughing.

"It wasn't very funny when they tore up my homework and tipped over the stew Mom was cooking!" Einar tried hard to be upset, but failed. "At the time it was a mess, but in hindsight, it was pretty funny. So I have to use my power from time to time to keep from making hobgoblins."

"And ... like at school, you can make water into ice? Is that another power?"

"Nah, it's the same thing. When I make snow, it's just freezing the water in the air. So Doc thinks my magic power is like ... like an instinctive spell."

Silje glanced at Regine, then looked sheepishly but questioningly at the boy. "Is it true - what everyone is saying? That you're ... changing?"

"Who's saying that?"

"It's pretty obvious - your eyes have changed, and your hair," Silje stated with conviction. "And your ears."

Absently, Einar reached up and touched his ears; by now, he was used to them - mostly. "Yeah, I guess it is."

"And losing weight? And wearing an elastic bandage on your chest?" Silje arched her eyebrows at the look of shock on Einar's face. "So ... it's true what Per said? That you were wearing an elastic bandage? Is there ... maybe more?"

"No!" Einar answered immediately, too quickly he realized. "Nothing else!"

"Einar!" Silje pressed. "Come on! Tell!" Seeing Einar's stubborn frown, she continued to badger him. "Come on, you can tell us!"

"Actually," Regine admitted sheepishly, "he told me, but I kind of promised I wouldn't tell!"

"Not even to your best friend?" Silje exclaimed, wounded. Then she saw the look between Einar and Regine. "Wait a second," she said as she thought. "On the trip to Trondheim ... you ... your Mom had your hair cut - and ... and ..." Her eyes widened as she goggled.

"Wasn't the haircut a giveaway?" Regine smirked.

"But ... I thought ... it was ...." The girl gawked at him for a moment. "I thought he was just ... getting one of the new ... non-gender-specific haircuts!" She stared, slack-jawed, for a few moments. "But ... it's not, is it? It's ... it's a girl's haircut!"

Einar winced, but Regine chuckled. "You ... aren't going to tell ...?" Einar practically begged.

"And ...when your Mom and I caught up with you ... it was outside the lingerie store ... because ...?"

Einar nodded sheepishly, blushing. "My sisters and Regine wanted to buy ...."

Silje's jaw dropped even further. "O. M. G! You're ... changing ... into a girl?" she squealed. She practically leaped to Einar's side and wrapped him in a hug, a 'girl and her BFF' hug. "That is SO cool!"

Einar winced enough that the snow stopped, while Regine gave him a look. "I told you she'd figure it out!" she said, rolling her eyes involuntarily.

"How could I have missed that?" Silje gawked, holding Einar's shoulders at arm's length and staring at him "O. M. G! You're ... you're cute! You're really, really cute!" Without taking her eyes off her study of Einar's features, she spoke to Regine. "But we have to do something with his hair! It's ... it'd look so much better if it was long, don't you think? And those bluish streaks - they're sooo kyoooot! I'd die to have hair that looks that cool!"

"You should see his ... her ... eyes!" Regine said, smiling at Einar, whose scowl at her choice of pronoun - emphasized, no less - was not something he wanted to hear.

"What? What about her eyes?" Silje shot back. "Have your eyes changed, too?" she turned on Einar. "Have her eyes changed?" she asked Regine when Einar scowled at her.

"I'm not a girl!" Einar snapped, almost stamping his foot in frustration.

"Yet," Regine and Silje retorted, grinning.

The boy closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly. "Why do I get the feeling you two are going to make my life miserable?"

* * * * * * * * * *

Steinkjer, Norway

"She used her powers again!" Margrethe Ottosen exclaimed triumphantly.

Helka Arud and Alva Solberg nodded. "Yes. Now let's see where we think this comes from." A map was already posted on a wall, the same map she carried and was plotting any and all 'findings' the coven had read.

"The crystals read her power as ... somewhere between south-southwest and south-southeast," Margrethe reported.

Helka looked at the map, her face screwed up in contemplation. "This ... doesn't make any sense," she said. The map now had four triangles sketched on it, counting the one Helka had just added. "Gunhild's reading was toward Bergen, and the reading from Molde was toward Trondheim. Your last reading was to the southwest."

Margrethe inhaled noisily through her teeth. "She must be moving."

"But why?" Helka spat angrily. "Why would she be moving like this?"

"And every reading we do takes essence we need for the summoning!" Alva reminded her compatriots needlessly.

"And we need more essence to watch for Dúrnir," Margrethe added.

"And we need enough essence to call down the moon in less than two weeks," Helka said, a frustrated sigh venting as she spoke.

"We need to budget our essence, then," Alva decided. "We need to figure out how much we need for each reading, for reading Dúrnir, and for doing the summoning."

"And the amount we must invest to call down the moon," Margrethe chimed in.

"Okay, I'll call our sisters," Helka announced. "No-one is to do any working until we have a plan. We must save all the essence we can."

"What about individual essence gathering spells?"

Helka rolled her eyes. "Well, of course those are okay! Just ... no workings that spend essence!"

* * * * * * * * * * (To be concluded)

More Whateley Academy fiction can be found at Whateley Academy main site

A Whateley Academy Adventure

Elle 1 - Dawn of the Aurora

by

ElrodW

Part 2

 

Hans rike for hennes hånde                               (His kingdom for her hand)
Kongen lengtes etter hennes bryst       (The king longs for her breast)
...
Kongen sover                         (The king sleeps)
Heksene vaker                       (The witches wait)
...
Sirkelen smidd i blodsed       (The circle bound by a blood oath)
....
Dvergene fester på øl og kjøtt                        (Dwarves feast on meat and ale)
På bryllupsfesten                    (At the wedding feast)
...
skjebne oppfylt                       (Destiny fulfilled)
...
Sirkelen løst fra sin gjeld            (The circle freed from debt)
...
...
Fragments of an ancient, nearly-lost epic poem
Den Sovende Kongen - The Sleeping King

 

After Christmas, 2006
Meraker, Norway

"Einar! What's up?" Regine called from her front door as Einar rode past on his bike. "Why do you look like someone shot your pet dog?"

Einar slowed, turning his bicycle, then rode across the packed snow onto the cleanly-shoveled driveway of Regine's house. "Hi," he said unenthusiastically.

"What's going on? Come in and we can make hot cocoa and you can tell me about it."

Einar dismounted from his bike and leaned it against the porch, then followed Regine into her house. Unlike everyone else outside at the moment, he was wearing a light jacket instead of a heavy winter coat, and he still looked comfortable, while everyone else appeared quite cold.

"So, what's up?" Regine repeated as she put the kettle on to boil.

Einar slumped into a chair at the table. "I just met with Mom and Dad and Ms. Næss," he said morosely.

"Oh? At school, or at your home?"

"At school, naturally," he replied. "We talked about me going back to school after the break is over."

"I bet you're looking forward to that!"

Einar snorted. "Not really. Mom doesn't want me using either the boys' or the girls' locker room for PE. Mrs. Næss said I had to, but Mom pointed out that girls might be scared ..."

"Because you still have ...."

Einar nodded. "And the boys would tease me or stuff because ..."

"Because you're developing breasts and look more female."

"And other ... things ... are changing. Mom makes a lot of sense, but Ms. Næss kept saying that rules are rules, and I have to choose which one I'm using. And I have to take PE classes. But I get to choose whether I take PE with the girls or the boys."

"And that'll determine which locker room you use?"

"That's what Ms. Næss said." Einar looked up from his cup of cocoa. "What do you think? Do you think the girls would be upset if I used the girls' locker room?"

Regine winced, then she slowly nodded. "Even for me, it'd be ... even with ...." She glanced away. "Even after ... yeah, it'd be kind of weird," she admitted. "And ... a lot of girls would think it was creepy."

"Even though I have to wear a bra and panties?"

The girl nodded. "Yeah. Some of the boys would tease you to no end, and a lot of girls - and probably their parents - would get upset."

"I can't use the boys' locker," Einar grumbled, "because the guys would be merciless." He took a sip of cocoa. "Do you think I should do boys' PE, or girls'?"

"What do you think?" Regine turned the question around on him.

"Coach was at the meeting, and he said I could do either, at least for now. He said that when ... things ... are gone, then I'll have to do PE with the girls. If I'm on the boys' team, he won't let me do biathlon, so ... I think I'd rather do girls'."

"Some of the girls will get jealous and think it's unfair."

"But Coach reminded me and my parents that since I'm a mutant, I can't compete in team sports, so ...."

"Yeah, that'd make some of the more competitive girls worry less. Did you talk about anything else?" She looked directly at him. "Are you going to dress as a girl or a boy?"

Einar started at the question, then looked down into his cup to avoid her gaze. "A girl."

Regine stared at him wordlessly for a while, eyes narrowed as she focused. "I ... I don't get it," she finally said. "Why aren't you freaking out?" He looked up at her, startled by her question. "If it was me, I'd be really freaked out."

Einar continued to stare silently at the half-consumed cup of hot cocoa, afraid to look up to see Regine's expression, which he feared. She was guessing a little too closely for his comfort.

Her jaw dropped open as she slowly processed all the facts she was aware of, and she tried to understand his reaction - or lack thereof. "You ... WANT TO BE A GIRL?!?" she exclaimed after thinking a bit.

The boy flinched, still looking down, but now he was blushing some. "I ... I don't think so. I ... I really don't know," he whispered. "I ... I just don't know."

"But you're comfortable with this? Changing into a girl?"

Einar took a couple of deep breaths, then looked up suddenly. "I'm not gay!"

"I didn't suggest you were," Regine replied gently, putting her hand atop his on the table. "Being comfortable ... or wanting ... with this - it's not gay."

"But ... it's not ... normal!"

"No, but neither is being a mutant," Regine reassured him. "If you're comfortable with it, that should be all that matters."

"But .. my friends. My family ...." Einar's eyes widened suddenly. "Family! Oh, crap! I'm supposed to be at home! My aunt came up from Oslo to see if she could help. Damn!" He stood abruptly. "I've gotta go!"

Regine followed his hasty march to the front door, but he suddenly halted and turned, and she ran into him. "Oops!"

"Sorry," Einar replied quickly. "I just ...." He turned his head away. "It's just ...." His voice cracked as he spoke. "I'm still kind of bummed that ... that we're not dating anymore," he said softly. "Silly isn't it?"

Regine nodded. "We probably would have broken up in a year or so anyway. But think of it this way," she reached up and turned Einar to face her. "You're my best friend now, and that'll last a lot longer than our relationship probably would have."

Einar nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak. She was right, he realized, on both counts, and now, in the middle of a change, he needed a best friend. "Yeah," he finally squeaked. Then he smiled a bit. "Can I talk my best friend into coming home with me, so I don't get ambushed by my family? I just know they're going to talk about these changes."

"Let me get my coat."

* * * * * * * * * *

"I have to say, Einar," Aunt Sophia Andersen said as she put down her teacup, "you're probably going to be a very attractive young lady, but I never quite expected my nephew to be the cutest of my nieces!"

"Well, I didn't want ...."

"And Einar Anders absolutely will not do!" she declared, cutting off Einar's words. There was no doubt that she was the dominant personality in the house. "Since you're turning into a girl, you need a girl's name!" She looked at her sister, Einar's mom. "I'm shocked, Anne-Marie, that you haven't taken care of that problem yet!"

Einar groaned. "She tried already, but ...."

"I think you should change your name, too!" Regine interjected. Instead of support, Regine had sided with the women and girls, leaving Einar totally outnumbered when his father wisely shut up and retreated to the living room with a book. "I think ... Eydis! That's a cool name - a goddess of something or other! Eydis Agnetha!"

"No!" Einar snapped harshly. "Hell no! Absolutely not!"

"Einar! Watch your tongue!" Aunt Sophia and Einar's mom snapped at the same time.

"Elle," Sophia said firmly. "That's what you told me you were going to name him if Einar had been a girl instead," she smiled at her sister.

"Elle? Elle - Agnetha?" Regine proposed.

"No! I will not let you name me Agnetha, even as a middle name!"

"Why not? She was one of the singers in ABBA," Aunt Sophia countered.

"Who?" Einar and Regine asked Sophia with feigned looks of confusion. Then they both glanced at each other and started snickering. "That's old fogey music!" Einar smirked.

"Astrid," Einar's mom said firmly. "Elle Astrid."

"Moooommmmmm!" Einar complained.

Einar's mom rose and went to the door to the living room. "Harald, we're going to change Einar's name to Elle Astrid since he's changing into a girl. Is that okay?"

"Yeah." Einar's dad didn't seem to be paying much attention.

"So, are you going to homeschool? Given what happened with Einar, you could probably get an exemption granted," Sophia said before sipping her tea again.

"No!" Regine protested. "Elle should go to school with the rest of us!"

"Einar?" Mom asked. "What do you want to do?"

"I ... I'd like to try ... going to school," he said hesitantly.

"So tomorrow, we'll go get your records changed to Elle Astrid," Mom replied with a pleasant smile, as if she was happy about his choice.

"It’s not like I have a choice about changing," Einar added unhappily; Regine caught his eye and winked at him, knowing they'd just had the conversation and that Einar was probably putting on a show for his family.

"We probably should go shopping for some school clothes for you then," Sophia declared. "Tomorrow we can go to Trondheim."

"Can ... may I come along?" Regine asked hopefully. "And maybe Silje, too?"

Aunt Sophia smiled. "The more, the merrier. Besides, you girls will do better with current teen styles than either of us 'old ladies'!" she added with air quotes and a grin.

"More shopping?" Einar complained.

"Get used to it, Elle," Regine chuckled in response. "Girls love to shop!"

Einar's mom walked back to the door. "We're going shopping with Einar ... Elle ... in Trondheim tomorrow, okay, dear?"

"Only after he helps out at the Alpinsenter!" Einar's dad didn't even try to rescue him from a shopping trip.

* * * * * * * * * *

Early January
Meraker, Norway

The school assembly hall was full, and as Einar - Elle - glanced from the doorway, she gulped nervously. Beside her, Regine held her hand and confidently reassured her, "You'll do fine. Everything will be okay. Ms. Næss is on your side, remember?"

"I know," Elle squeaked, fighting the butterflies in her stomach. "But ... this is harder than I thought it was going to be." She'd decided, after the evening with Aunt Sophia, that she should just jump into the change whole hog, not trying to make it a gradual transition. Hence, he was trying to think of himself as a 'her', and was trying to exclusively use the name Elle.

"Well, it's too late now, because Ms. Næss just gave your prompt."

Elle swallowed hard, then walked, visibly shaking, through the door. When the principal stopped talking, the usual school-kid chatter had resumed, but as soon as Elle appeared, it halted abruptly, leaving Elle terrified that all the kids would be able to hear her knees knocking together from nerves. She strode awkwardly to the podium where the principal waited.

"Hi," she said nervously, glancing to the side to see that Ms. Næss hadn't abandoned her, but was standing by her side. Her parents and Aunt Sophia stood to one side as well. "I'm ...." She gulped, trying to force down the butterflies. "I'm ...." She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. "Some of you know from last fall that I ... manifested as a mutant," she finally got out. "But ... you don't know what that did to me, because I've kept it hidden. In fact, it was probably a good thing that I tele-schooled at the end of the fall term. But ... I'm ... I was ... Einar."

"Einar?!?" Jonathan Losnedahl gasped aloud, audible in the utter silence of the assembly.

Elle glanced around and located Jonathan, then nodded. "I ... my mutation ... is turning me into ... a girl," she said, wincing uneasily. "I ... I'm ... Mom and Dad filed the paperwork, so my name is now ... Elle Astrid," she managed to get out. "I'm ... I'm coming back to school ... as a girl, which I've almost completely changed into, and I want you to call me Elle, since that's legally my name now."

Ms. Næss stepped to the microphone. "Until he ... she ... is done changing, Elle will use the faculty restroom, including for changing for PE. Since Elle is officially a girl in government records, she will be participating in girls' PE classes."

"That's not fair!" one of the older girls cried out. "Having to have a boy ...."

"A girl!" Ms. Næss corrected her sharply. "You'll have another girl in your PE class. And just to clarify a point, it's a national rule that mutants are not allowed to compete in athletics, so if, for example, Elle were to want to participate in girls' cross-country skiing, she would be allowed to train and practice, but not compete as part of the official team."

"That's just sick!" one of the boys in the crowd spat; Elle was sure that it was Per's voice. "Mutant freak!"

"That will be enough of that!" Ms. Næss thundered into the mic, her voice amplified to carry every little nuance of her anger to echo around the room, sinking into the very bodies of the assembled kids. Many of them were totally startled, since they'd never heard her so emphatically and angrily say anything. "Our government position is that mutants have the same civil rights as any baseline, and are entitled to the same education. Further, we are not like those barbaric, backwards, redneck cowboys across the Atlantic! It is not illegal to be gay or have other gender differences, and it will NOT be tolerated in my school or any other government-chartered school! Is that clear?!?" Far from the hesitant, almost anti-mutant principal of only weeks ago, now that she'd read the law and the Ministry of Education's rules and guidelines, Ms. Næss had become a bulldog in protecting Elle's rights.

The assembly was deathly silent for several moments. "Good," Ms. Næss said. "Now, does anyone have any questions - polite questions - for any of us?"

Per sat in his seat with several of his crowd, all glaring at Elle, but they now knew better than to say anything. But Halvard stood. "So ... what kind of mutant powers do you have?"

Several of the students groaned, as did Elle's parents, but she smiled as she took the mic from Ms. Næss. "I can ... make snow and ice out of water," Elle replied, and then she got a mischievous grin. "As some of you already know." She thought a moment, and then continued. "Like this."

Gasps of surprise filled the ranks of students as snow began to waft around the room, circulated by the air currents from the room's fans, falling gently among the students. Feeling a little cocky, Elle saw a bottle of water behind the podium, so she took it out and twisted off the cap, then upended it. But remarkably, no water hit the floor - as it left the bottle, it was immediately frozen into a giant icicle hanging from the plastic.

"Can you do anything else?" Silje asked excitedly. She already knew about the snow stuff.

"Maybe someday, but ... I have a lot to learn about how magic works," Elle admitted. And about being a girl, she thought to herself. She was sure she wasn't the only one.

* * * * * * * * * *

Late January

"I love your hair!" Silje said admiringly to Elle as she and Regine walked Elle home.

Elle blushed. "It's ... it's okay I guess."

"It's gorgeous!" Silje countered. "I'd die to have hair like that! With the blue in it, it's like staring at a glacier or something! And it looks so silky!"

"It's kind of a pain," Elle said, blushing at the compliment.

"It's going to be even prettier when she grows it longer," Regine threw in.

"I never said ...." Elle started to protest, knowing that Regine had merely mentioned that she should grow her hair longer. But now that her friend had made up her mind, Elle knew that Regine was going to somehow cajole her into growing her hair longer.

"Oh, that'd be adorable!" Silje gushed. "Maybe we should go to one of those fashion websites, you know the ones where you can use your picture? And we can see how some different longer hairstyles would look on you?"

"And the way her ears sometimes poke out through her hair - she looks like an overgrown pixie, don't you think?" Regine asked, smiling admiringly.

"I don't know," Silje paused, looking at Elle critically as she though. "Maybe she's too cute! Maybe we shouldn't help her anymore, because she'll get all the attention!"

"Especially from the boys!" Regine teased.

"Not likely," Elle countered. "I'm not interested ...."

"You!"

Elle spun toward the angry-sounding voice, startled. Beside her, Silje and Regine turned as well, and both of their mouths dropped open at the sight that greeted them.

"You sick fucking freak!" Per snarled as he and three of his buddies stomped toward the girls. They were off school grounds, so technically, the principal could do nothing, and Per knew it.

"Leave her alone!" Silje said defensively, interposing herself between the rapidly-approaching Per and Elle.

That didn't matter to Per - he brutally shoved Silje aside. "Decent people don't like you sick mutants around here!" he snarled. "Especially you gender-queer freaks!"

The rising panic Elle was feeling threatened to turn into terror, but then something strange happened - it turned into the familiar pressure, quickly building up inside her. With a snarl, she released that magic energy; the weekends working at the Alpinsenter and at home dissipating her excess essence had let her practice some degree of control. A miniature blizzard erupted, fueled by the girl's essence and the humidity in the air, slamming icy stings into the boys' exposed faces like a million tiny bees.

Seeing the boys were distracted, Elle abruptly let the snow abate, changing instead to precipitating the humidity into glare ice at the boys' feet. In the meantime, Regine had helped Silje back to her feet.

"Run!" Elle yelled. It didn't take a second prompt to get Regine and Silje darting away from the would-be bullies.

Per managed, somehow, to get enough forward momentum that, even though he slipped on the ice and was falling, he was able to get a handful of Elle's jacket, enough so that she fell down. The larger boy couldn't maintain his grip when he painfully hit the icy walk, but Elle was down, too, and he got ahold of her leg before she could get to her feet.

Regine and Silje turned when Elle screamed, but they were already a few steps away, and realized that they were not going to be able to help Elle before Per could hurt her, which he was winding up to do.

And then the world seemed to explode with lights, at least around Elle. Swirling, incredibly bright fibers of white, green, and blue filaments of light swirled and danced around the Sidhe girl, nearly blinding Silje and Regine, and more importantly, blinding Per and his thugs.

Momentarily shocked by what had happened, Elle scrambled back away from Per, then scrambled to her feet. Seeing how her friends were nearly mesmerized by the rapidly-fading light, she grabbed Silje's and Regine's hands and tugged them away, wanting to get as far from the bullies as quickly as she could.

* * * * * * * * * *

Late-February
Trondheim, Norway

"Don't look," Silje hissed to Regine and Elle as they started walking away from a bus stop, "but there are two old ladies over there staring at us."

She shouldn't have said anything, because naturally the other two girls, as well as Elle's sister Sara and her Mom, looked. The women looked somewhat grandmotherly, in woolen winter coats, with scarves, but at the moment, their heads were uncovered, and they were, indeed, staring at the small group from Meraker, their eyes narrowed in careful scrutiny.

The two women said something between them, still focused on the group, and Elle felt a chill run through her, and she shivered from head to toe. It was even stranger, because when people were caught staring at someone else, they normally looked away. Instead, the women seemed to intensify their gaze.

"Let's ... let's get out of here," Elle whispered to her mom.

"Why? What's wrong?"

"There's something ... about those two," Elle replied uneasily. "It's ... I think they did something and it felt like ... like when I was doing magic testing a few months ago. It was like ... they were using magic on me!"

"They're just a couple of old ladies," Sara snorted. "Like Grandma. I don't know why you're so afraid...."

"They did something, and I felt it!" Elle shot back. "Please! Let's get out of here!"

Mrs. Ruud read the panic in Elle's voice, and saw her expression; it only took milliseconds for her to decide. "Okay."

The group turned away from the two women and quickened their step, heading toward a well-known clothing store. Silje couldn't help looking over her shoulder toward the women, who were watching but hadn't left the spot where they stood. "They're not following us," she whispered insistently to Regine and Silje.

Seeing Elle's still-worried look, Regine took her elbow. "Just forget it, okay? They're not following us. Let's have fun shopping."

"But ...."

Silje shook her head. "They were strange old ladies. Forget about them, okay? They've probably never seen a girl with white hair and elf ears!"

"And you've grown a bit, so we have to find you a new bra!" Regine chuckled.

"Something lacy and sexy," Silje chimed in. "Maybe pink?"

Elle stared between the two girls who were on either side of her, then she groaned. "Why do I get the feeling I'm going to regret this?"

* * * * * * * * * *

"It has to be her!" Helka said to Alva, standing by her side on the sidewalk of Trondheim, still gazing after the girl.

"I felt her magic, too," Alva replied. "Her hair is the same color as the legend says."

"Did you see her ears?" Helka asked. "She has the ears of the queen, of the dwarves and the ancient races."

"I didn't see them."

"She lives somewhere near here."

"Do you think she noticed the tracer spell?" Alva asked. "She looked like something disturbed her. If she did ....?"

"If she had noticed," Helka countered, "do you think we'd be standing here?"

"I don't think the tracer spell took on her, though. So," Alva pondered aloud, "how are we going to find her? She could live anywhere in the county."

"Gunhild!" Helka exclaimed suddenly, eyes wide open. "She said she thought she felt something a few months ago - after we first saw the signs."

"Could it be ...?" Alva gawked at her, open-mouthed in shock. "But ... she said she saw a boy!"

Helka started to shrug, but then her eyes narrowed. "Stranger things have happened with the queen. It is entirely possible." She fumbled in her oversized purse, digging out a folded paper, which she unfolded and began to stare. "Two readings in Trondheim and Stjordalshalsen indicated east, but two readings seemed to indicate Trondheim. Is it possible - she lives east of Stjordalshalsen, and occasionally travels to Trondheim?"

"Martin!" Alva muttered, mouth hanging open in surprise.

"What?"

"My grandson Martin!" Alva repeated. "Last time he visited, he said his friend manifested as a white-haired mutant, and now the school is all crazy because ... the boy is turning into a girl!"

"Call him!" Helka ordered.

Alva nodded and pulled out her cell phone. After a bit, she looked at Helka, her face pale. "He said his friend Einar is changing into a girl named Elle, and that she has shoulder-length white hair with some light blue ..."

"The same color as the legends."

"And ... she has ... elf ears!" Alva reported.

Helka's eyes narrowed. "Let's call the sisters. We have a binding to prepare." She paused a moment. "Where does he live?"

"Meraker."

* * * * * * * * * *

March
Meraker, Norway

Elle paused as she, Silje, and Regine turned the corner toward her house; there was a car on the street that she didn't remember, sitting in front of the Ruud home. "I wonder who that is," she said as much to herself as to her best friends. The disturbances at school had mostly died down, although Per was as bigoted and hateful as he'd ever been, and several girls were, according to Regine, very jealous of Elle's looks. But Ms. Næss had watched things like a hawk for the first two weeks, severely disciplining anyone who stepped over the line, and with Elle being very unobtrusive and easy-going, most of the other kids moved on to other gossip and news, which was fine with Elle. Some, like Per, didn't, but he'd taken to just grumbling and name-calling after a couple of humiliations with her ice and 'aurora' powers.

"Do ... do those ladies look like the women from Trondheim?" Regine asked softly.

"I don't ...," Silje began, but then she halted. "Maybe the one on the left?"

"Excuse me," the woman who looked positively ancient, her face lined and weathered, her hair white as snow, said with a smile. "I'm looking for a friend of my grandson. Perhaps you know him?"

"Why?"

The woman smiled disarmingly. "His birthday is coming up, and I want to contact his friends to arrange a party."

"What's his name?" Elle's guard was up, but the 'friend of grandson' line had lessened her sense of danger.

"Martin," the woman replied easily. "Martin Solberg. Do you know him?"

Elle couldn't help but not know the boy, considering the size of the city and the school. "Yes, I go to school with him."

"Oh? Good. And you are ...?"

"Elle," she replied, reaching out to shake the woman's extended hand. "He didn't tell me ..."

A burning pain erupted on her wrist as an old-fashioned black-iron manacle was clamped around it, and before she could scream, her other wrist was bound as well, the shackles connected by a few inches of what looked to be wrought-iron chain.

Silje and Regine screamed at the sudden assault, and then Regine threw herself at the woman who'd clamped the bands on Elle's wrist. The woman was far stronger than she looked, and she had no problem painfully grasping Regine's arm. At the same time, the other woman grabbed Silje and after a very brief struggle, succeeded in handcuffing her as well.

After being momentarily stunned by the sudden attack, Elle reached inside her to release the magic, but her jaw dropped when nothing happened. There was no feeling of magic being released, or even being present. At the same time, her arms burned terribly, distracting her.

The second woman grabbed Elle around the neck. "Stop, or your friend gets hurt!" she hissed angrily at Regine, also looking at Silje.

As Regine slowly sank back off the first woman, horrified at the threat to Elle. The first woman, still holding one of Elle's wrists, painfully grasped Regine's arm. "We'll take them all. If she," she cocked her head toward Elle, "won't cooperate, maybe they can help persuade her."

Holding Silje's cuffed arm, the second woman opened the back door of the car and shoved the still-struggling girl in. Then she took charge of Regine, pausing to handcuff her while the first woman worked Elle in beside Silje. After Regine was placed in the car, the two women climbed in and started the car.

"People saw you!" Regine tried to be defiant and brave, even though she was trembling inside. This was a full-fledged kidnapping that she was caught in.

The first woman, in the passenger seat, smiled. "I don't think so, dearie," she said confidently.

"But ... it's broad daylight!" Silje cried out.

"Yes, young lady," the first woman replied with a smile. "But nobody pays attention if they think that something is none of their business." She looked directly at Elle. "Your friend knows a little about magic. She should know that it's possible to craft a spell that makes people simply not care. The spell doesn't hide us; the spell makes us look so ordinary and common that no-one pays attention, and if anyone does look, they get a very strong feeling that it's not their problem."

"This is kidnapping! You're going to get caught!" Silje tried a little bit of frantic reasoning. "It'd be better to give up now."

"We won't be caught," the second woman said.

"Why are you doing this to us?" Elle cried out.

"We're not doing anything to all of you," the first woman practically cackled. "Only you." She stared malevolently at Elle in a way that made the elf-girl cringe with fright.

"Now, Helka," the second woman said, "I get the feeling these three are going to be quite noisy and full of questions, so ...."

The first woman, the one apparently named Helka, nodded. "We have a long drive ahead of us," she explained, "to our ... well, I suppose you would call it a gathering place, a casting circle. So why don't you be dears and go to sleep, hmm?" With that, she muttered something that sounded quite strange, and as Elle felt the tingling of magic, she found she could no longer keep her eyes open.

* * * * * * * * * *

Mrs. Ruud walked determinedly through the house, looking unsuccessfully for her daughter. "Sara," she called to her middle daughter, who was in her room, "have you seen Elle today?"

"Huh? Oh, Elle!" After ten years, Sara was having a bit of an adjustment to calling her older sibling 'Elle'. All of the family were, in fact. "I haven't seen her since this morning when we went to school."

"She was supposed to put the roast in the oven," Mom complained. "But she didn't!"

"I haven't seen .... Oh, wait!" Sara corrected herself. "She was talking to Regine and Silje after school. Maybe she went with them."

Mom shook her head. "I swear, that girl is getting more and more distracted the longer she's getting 'girl lessons' from those two!" She went back to the kitchen and sat at the table, taking out her cell phone. "Sigrid," she said when the other end picked up, "Anne-Marie. I wondered if you've seen Elle. She was supposed to make dinner tonight, but she's late, and Sara thought she saw her with Silje and Regine."

The woman on the other end, Mrs. Nilson, Silje's mom, shook her head. "No, I haven't seen them. I had a call that Silje might be late because she was with Regine and Elle, so they're probably at the Baardsson's."

"Thanks, Sigrid. If they do come, please tell Elle that she was supposed to make dinner, she's late, we're hungry, and she's in serious trouble."

Sigrid Nilson chuckled. "And if Silje shows up over there first, tell her that she's grounded for a week because it's dinnertime."

"Okay. Bye." Mrs. Ruud hung up, then dialed another number. "Brita? Anne-Marie. I'm looking for Elle, and the ...."

"Who?" Mrs. Baardsson asked, puzzled, and then her mind caught up. "Oh, Einar. I mean Elle." She chuckled. "That's hard to get used to."

"Tell me about it! Sara said she saw Elle with Silje and Regine, and you know how those three have been hanging out a lot lately."

"Yeah, I know. You know, you're spoiling Regine by taking her with you to Trondheim all the time!"

Anne-Marie chuckled. "She's been a huge help - and a dear friend - to Elle's adjusting, so I figured it would help if Elle had friends with her. You know - Regine and Silje are more help with teen fashion than I do!"

"Yeah. But no, I haven't seen the girls. If you see Regine, tell her to call."

"I will. Bye." Anne-Marie hung up, puzzled. The only other thing she could think was that the girls had gone out to the Alpinsenter; Harald's boss had been paying Elle to use her snow power to help fill in bare spots in the ski trails.

After thinking a second, she opened an app on her cell phone; Elle's phone should be automatically checking in with its position, so .... After a few moments, she frowned; the app showed that Elle's phone was off-line. Frowning, she had the phone dial Elle's number - and with the phone at her ear, she waited, getting more nervous by the millisecond. When the phone rolled over immediately to voice-mail, she knew Elle's phone was off-line.

The next call to her husband provided no answers; he hadn't called Elle to the center. Two phone calls confirmed the same for Silje and Regine - and added two mothers who went from concerned to frantically worried.

All the parents were gathered in the Ruud home in the living room, talking an officer from the Nord-Trondelag district police from the Meraker station, while two other officers interviewed neighbors to see if anyone had seen anything. They had no luck.

"At this point, we can list them as missing persons, because there's no evidence of a crime," the leading officer said reluctantly. "We have no reason for anyone ...."

"But, one of Elle's classmates, Per Lund - he hates Elle!" Sara interrupted. "Maybe he knows where she is!"

The officers exchanged glances, and then at the Ruuds, who nodded. "Yes, he really doesn't like Elle. He tried to bully and physically attack her a few times, but we were all certain he'd given up."

"We'll check it out," the officer noted.

"Maybe they went to visit the old ladies," Thea said from the doorway, where she was watching and listening with her child-like curiosity.

The officers perked up and looked at her. "What old ladies?" one of them asked.

Thea glanced nervously at her parents, then shrugged. "Two old ladies in a blue car. They stopped outside the house. It looked like they were waiting."

"What happened to them? Did you see the girls go with them?" Anne-Marie practically demanded from her daughter.

"I don't know," Thea said, afraid she'd done or said something wrong. "I ... I got bored and went to play."

"No-one else mentioned a car, or older women," one of the officers said to the officer-in-charge.

"Are you sure?" Anne-Marie asked her daughter cautiously.

"Uh huh," Thea nodded fearfully. "I saw the car come, then I got bored."

Anne-Marie exchanged a nervous glance with her husband. "Um, Elle is a ... mutant," she said.

The officer nodded. "Yes, we looked her up on the computer, so we know her status. Because of that, you might want to call this number." He took a card out of his pocket and wrote a name and number, then handed it to Anne- Marie.

"Magni-Fist?"

"He's a registered hero in Oslo. Because she's an unusual mutant, he might be helpful. And there's a specialist doctor in Trondheim ...."

"Dr. Holgersen," Anne-Marie finished for him. "Yes, we know him. He's helped Elle with testing."

* * * * * * * * * *

Near Støren, Norway

After they woke up from their magic-induced sleep, it took the girls about two seconds to figure out that they were being carried somewhere underground; the walls and ceiling were rough-hewn from solid rock, and the overhead timber beams and supports added to the somewhat claustrophobic feeling of being in a mine, though the lights were electric, and the tunnel was well lit. Doors were set in the wall periodically - heavy wooden affairs held together and to the hinges with heavy metal straps. It looked as rustic as it felt; Elle wondered what the side rooms were, while at the same time, she dreaded the thought that she and her friends might be held captive behind one of those doors.

"You're awake," one of the older women snapped as she realized that the girls were moving. "Good. Now you can walk." They were lowered to their feet; a large man had been carrying Silje and Regine over his shoulder, while one of the women was carrying Elle. Not knowing what else to do, especially since the man with the old women was huge and the women used magic, the girls followed as the old women set off again. After twisting and turning through the tunnel, the two women stopped and opened one of the heavy doors, which creaked almost stereotypically. With a prod, the girls walked in.

The room inside was more of a small cavern than a little room. The room was circular, about nine meters in diameter, and the ceiling domed into the solid rock, from two meters at the rim to around five meters in the center. The room featured a circle of plinths, massive upright stones capped by stone lintels, all of which encircled the room like an underground Stonehenge. Candles around the periphery provided the light, a flickering, yellow glow that did nothing to calm the girls' nerves. Lining the wall between the stones were several small tables and cabinets, all of weathered oak, and all holding leather-bound books or little vials and tins and jars of who-knew-what.

Elle shuddered when she saw a circle carved into the floor, its rim lined with runes and glyphs of some type; from her magic testing with Dr. Holgersen, she knew a spell circle when she saw it. There were eight or nine other women in the room, all engaged in some type of preparation.

"Why ... why are you doing this?" Elle pleaded, her eyes watering; seeing the women working with magic gave her a very bad feeling, a very frightened feeling.

One of the women who'd kidnapped them smiled. "It's a long and complicated story."

The other woman agreed. "There's an ancient epic that very, very few have heard of. It goes like this: All his gold for a kiss, his kingdom for her hand. The king longed for her bosom."

Another woman came over and continued. "The queen is gone. Her time was done. The evil one slew the sisters."

The second kidnapper nodded. "Heartbroken that she left him, the king sleeps until she is his."

Yet another of the women came to the circle that was forming around the girls. "The witches await, the circle forged by a blood oath, to bind the queen when she returns, or the circle will perish."

"Destiny fulfilled. A gift to the king, who awakens at the appointed hour."

"The dwarves feast with ale and meat at the wedding feast, as a new kingdom arises in the mountains." The way the women recited the stanzas, it was obvious that they knew it by heart, and with the feeling they were putting into the recitation, it was equally obvious that they believed it. They probably believed themselves to be the witches from the story.

"The king reigns again, as his sons and their sons, which the queen bears to him."

All of the women joined in. "The circle is unbound from debt."

Elle felt an icy shiver run up and down her spine multiple times, and frightened by the strange poem and this group's devotion to its curious prophecies, she glanced at Regine and Silje, who were looking at her with terrified expressions.

"Girls," the women who'd been called Helka said, "I'd like you to meet our very special guest."

"Who are the other two?" one of the younger women said, eyeing Regine and Silje critically as if sizing them up.

"They're insurance, Anika," Helka chuckled. "We need our special guest to cooperate, but if she won't, these two girls can help ... persuade her."

"Have you heard from Alva, Judit, or Ingeborg?" another woman asked.

"Alva and Ingeborg should be here later tonight. Judit won't be here until late tomorrow," the old woman answered.

"It'll take that long for preparations," Anika replied easily, still gazing hungrily at Elle's two friends. She turned to a girl of about twenty-three who seemed to be attending to Anika. "Helena, take our ... guests ... to a room, and see to their needs."

"Yes, ma'am," Helena answered dutifully. She strode confidently to the girls. "If you'll follow me ...." She turned, grinning wickedly. "And don't get any ideas about trying to run away," she added. Behind her, two large men appeared in the doorway.

The girls followed Helena through the tunnel, followed closely by the large, powerful men, and she let them into a small chamber which contained three beds. "Everything you need is here," she said easily. "I'll be back in a few minutes with some dinner, since you have been traveling a while."

"You don't have to help them!" Elle pleaded. "They're ...this is criminal! It's wrong!"

"Oh, but I do," Helena answered with a smile. "If I want to be part of the coven someday, I need to apprentice." She watched Elle fidgeting to get the iron away from her skin. "Oh, by the way - cold iron stops Sidhe magic completely. You won't be able to do any of your spells." She saw Elle's face fall, and chuckled. "And after the ceremony, you won't want to use your magic in any way that would harm any of us. Or him." She ducked out, cackling evilly, and the door slammed shut, the sound of a key clanking in the lock.

After her footsteps faded down the hall, Silje and Regine tried the door. "It's no use," Silje said after a little shoving and grunting. The girls sat down on one of the three rather primitive wooden beds in the room, one on either side of Elle. "We'll figure something out," Silje told her friend.

"If I could get these off," Elle grumbled, holding up her manacled wrists. "They burn - really bad!"

Regine thought a moment, then took off her shoes and slipped off her socks. With some work, she got them in between the iron and Elle's skin, much to the girl's relief. "I hope this doesn't irritate your skin too much," she added.

"Even if it does," Elle said, sighing with relief that the burning sensation was gone, "it's better than the burning. It was blistering!" She looked around the room. There was a small toilet behind a wooden partition, and a small sink and mirror on the wall. "At least we don't have to sleep on the floor."

* * * * * * * * * *

Meraker, Norway

Harald Ruud crowded up behind Dr. Holgersen. "Do you ....?" he started to ask.

"Shhh!" Dr. Holgersen insisted loudly. "You'll disturb my concentration!" He was alternating his gaze between the street and snow, and a very peculiar instrument held from a waist-belt and neck-strap.

The huge beefy hand clasping painfully on Mr. Ruud's shoulder made him wince; he didn't have to turn to know who the hand belonged to. He did, though, out of reflex, and he beheld a tall, broad, well-muscled, man glaring down at him, a man who was a stereotypical Viking if ever there was one - long, blonde, Viking-style forked beard, long hair hanging down to his shoulders from beneath the Vendel-era helmet on his head, perfect Nordic blue eyes, a double-bladed axe on his back, and leather armor on his chest. A nosepiece on the helmet helped hide his identity; as Viking warriors were not exactly commonly encountered, the obvious guess was that the man was a hero, which happened to be an accurate guess.

"Don't bother him," Magni-Fist's thunderous voice boomed down. "Devises can be quite ... finicky."

"I thought ... magic couldn't be detected except by other mages," Mr. Ruud whispered over his shoulder.

"Dr. Holgersen is a devisor. Things he makes ... they shouldn't work. They violate reason and physics, but they work, at least for the devisor," Magni-Fist explained. "Some speculate that they use some type of magic themselves, but that's just a theory."

"So he's trying to detect magic?"

"Hopefully, they used magic," the hero explained. "Since your daughter lost interest in them, and no-one else seemed to notice them, there's a good chance they did. So Sjorn's ... gizmo ... is trying to read any magic residue."

"This is all so ... so strange!" Harald sighed in frustration. They were no closer to ....

"I've got something!" Dr. Holgersen called out. "Faint, but it's there."

"How old?" Magni-Fist asked.

"What? Oh ...." The doctor looked at his wrist, then sighed and looked at the other wrist. "Um, it'd be ... about six hours old."

"So ... now we call the police?" Mr. Ruud asked, feeling hope for the first time.

"No," Magni-Fist replied, scowling. "They won't accept Sjorn's devise or its readings as evidence."

"So what do we do?"

"We follow the trail," Dr. Holgersen answered. Without waiting, he started walking down the street, his eyes focused on the meters and gauges on his box.

"Sjorn!" Magni-Fist called to him.

"Huh? What?" The doctor turned around, a little unhappy at the interruption.

"We better take a car," Magni-Fist

"Oh. Oh, yeah." He automatically started to walk toward Mr. Ruud's car.

"Um, why can't we take your car?" Mr. Ruud asked, baffled by the doctor's behavior.

Dr. Holgersen gawked at him like he was crazy. "Oh, that's right! I drove. And you didn't!" Magni-Fist had flown, since he had the PK Superman powers. He looked back at Harald. "I suppose you should drive, since you're more familiar with the area. Besides," he grinned at the hero, "I bet you haven't driven in years!"

"Hey!" Magni-Fist boomed defensively, "I know how to drive." Then he winced. "But yeah, it's been a long time." He looked at Dr. Holgersen's car, and his expression fell. "I don't suppose your car," he said to Harald, "is bigger?"

"Yeah, it is," Mr. Ruud replied.

"Okay, so point me to the output jack is from your diphasic, focused-beam directional esso-plasmic antenna," he said as he walked toward Mr. Ruud's car.

"My what?!?"

"Your ... essence residue detector antenna?" Seeing the blank stare he was getting. "Well never mind. I should be able to compensate if you can give me about 4 dB gain on the beta channel of your polyphaser power supply."

"My what?!?"

"You don't have ....?" Dr. Holgersen gaped at Mr. Ruud. Finally, he shook his head. "Never mind. We'll just have to take my car."

Magni-Fist groaned as he looked at the sub-compact. If Dr. Holgersen was in the front passenger seat running his detector, and Mr. Ruud was driving .... He looked at the extremely tiny back seat and wanted to cry.

* * * * * * * * * *

Near Støren, Norway

"This is crazy!" Silje said aloud, lying on one of the beds and staring at the ceiling.

"Yeah, but what are we going to do?" Elle asked, her voice more than slightly tinged with desperation. "I mean, they think they're witches!"

"They are witches," Regine grumbled in reply. "Remember?"

"That's ... crazy!" Elle replied, fighting tears. This whole thing was more than slightly scary for her. "This makes no sense at all! I'm just ...."

"Just a mutant girl they think is a queen of something," Silje completed the sentence. "And you do magic yourself, remember?"

"But ... I'm supposed to be the queen? Of what? That's ... that thing they read - that's centuries old! It can't be true! It has to be about people who died a long, long time ago!"

"Well, let's think about it," Regine said. "There's something about a queen, and a king who sleeps."

"Which is you," Silje looked at Elle, "and the king - Dúrnir? Who is that? Some ... ancient king? And dwarves pigging out at a wedding feast?"

"Hold it," Regine frowned. For a bit, she was lost in thought. "I ... I remember something from ... some class - a few years ago? Or ... mythology. Something about a dwarf king who tricked a real king or prince or something. I think his name was something like Dormer or something like that. May be it was " Dúrnir.

"So ... I'm supposed to do what - marry a dwarf king?" Elle gawked at Regine. "Is that what they think? That wasn't real! That's just ... myths! I can't get married! I'm ... I'm just thirteen!" she cried.

"This is ... weird. A circle, bound by a blood oath? Watching? For what?"

"For me to return, apparently," Elle pouted angrily. "So they think that because I'm a mutant with elf ears and white hair that I'm some kind of ancient queen?"

"What if it's true?" Silje posed. "Remember what Mrs. Torgesen taught a few years ago - about our cultural mythology? That sometimes myths have a basis in truth?"

"That's ... impossible!"

"But ... what if it isn't? What if there is some truth behind the myths? Would they maybe be based on ... what did you say you were turning into?"

"Sidhe," Elle grumbled.

"What if they're based on Sidhe? You said the girl in your dreams said she was from ages past. What if it's true?"

"Whether it's true or not," Regine cautioned Elle, "they think it's true. So we have to get out of here somehow, before they do something to you based on what they think."

* * * * * * * * * *

Trondheim, Norway

"Stop!" Dr. Holgersen cried out suddenly. "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

Mr. Ruud mashed the brakes, and the car screeched to a halt. "What?"

"We lost the signal!" Holgersen reported excitedly. "Back up!"

"But ... I'm in traffic!"

"Back up!" Holgersen repeated, more insistently. When Mr. Ruud didn't act quickly enough, he unplugged the six umbilical cords that tied his devise to the car and hopped out, right in traffic. Ignoring the honking horns and angry shouts from drivers, he ran back the direction they'd come.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Magni-Fist said as he unfolded himself out of the back seat. "You find a place to turn around."

It took Mr. Ruud almost five minutes to find a place to turn around and get back on the same street. When he got to a major intersection, he immediately spotted Magni-Fist restraining Dr. Holgersen in the middle of the intersection, ignoring the cars honking at them. Mr. Ruud pulled up beside them.

The hero practically pushed the devisor into the car, then folded himself back into the back seat. "Well?" Mr. Ruud asked hopefully.

"Turn right. Right!!!"

Mr. Ruud flinched at the mad devisor's frantic directions, slamming on the turn signal and trying to thread his way past uncooperative traffic. Finally, after several near-missed and a lot of angry and vocal drivers, they were on a main thoroughfare that turned into a highway heading south.

"Do you still have the signal?" Mr. Ruud asked as he tried to speed up. "We have to hurry - Elle's in danger!"

"Yes, I've got it. You focus on driving, I'll tell you where to go!"

Cramped in the back seat, Magni-Fist debated with himself whether a good shot of Akvavit - half a bottle would be a good shot - would help the trip go easier than this mad dash with an upset dad and a crazy devisor. He slowly convinced himself that it couldn't hurt.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Aegloswen!" Elle called out across the barren glacier. There was no sign of her friend, and the wind howled a bit, driving snow before it, and for the first time on the glacier, Elle felt a little chilled. "Aegloswen!" she called out again. For what seemed like hours, Elle wandered about, calling out to the girl and searching for her.

Aegloswen was sitting between two rocks, her back against an ice-wall, and her arms around her knees in a near-fetal position.

"Aegloswen," Elle called, kneeling down in front of the distraught Sidhe girl that inhabited his dreams. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," she bawled to Elle. "I ... this is all my fault."

Elle felt sorry for the girl who looked small and frightened and pathetic, so she pulled the Sidhe girl onto her shoulder. "It's not your fault."

"If ... if my spirit ... hadn't come to you," Aegloswen sobbed, "this wouldn't be happening."

After comforting the girl long enough that she'd mostly stopped crying, Elle spoke again. "Who ... who is Dúrnir? Who's the dwarf king? What do they want with me? Why are they calling me the queen?"

"I ... I don't know," Aegloswen sobbed. "I ... can't remember!"

"But ...."

"I do remember that long ago, there were many Sidhe, of many races. The ice realm, the desert realm, the woods, the plains. Maybe the mountains, too?"

"In my mythology," Elle explained, trying to be patient but really upset because she needed answers that Aegloswen didn't have, "there are ... dwarves, who are like ... dark elves. They were supposed to live in the mountains, I think. Like dwarves in Lord of the Rings and movies and books like that."

"Maybe they were Sidhe?"

"But ... what would they want with me?" Elle practically begged for some kind of answer. "And why do they call me the queen? Is it because they think I'm supposed to be wed to the dwarf king, which would make me his queen?"

"I'm so sorry," Aegloswen repeated. "I just don't know!"

* * * * * * * * * *

The sound of a key in the rustic lock awakened the girls, and they bolted upright in their beds. Down in the cave, there was no indication of time, so they had no idea if it was the middle of the night or the middle of the next day, only that they'd slept.

With two guards behind her, Helena carried a tray with three bowls and a big pot of something. "Breakfast time," she announced in a disgustingly cheery voice.

"Please," Elle begged, "you have to help us! They're ... they're just using you, and they're doing ... bad things!"

"We went through this last night," Helena said with a smirk. "I want to be a part of the coven, so I will do my part and help my mistress as her apprentice." Her expression hardened. "So quit whining. It's not doing any good." She put the tray down on the end of Silje's bed, the one nearest the door, and stormed haughtily out. The slam of the massive oaken door was followed by the metal-on-metal grating of the key in the lock.

"I say next time we jump her," Regine grumbled. "It can't make things any worse than they are now!"

Silje shook her head sadly. "I have the feeling that they're just using Helena," she observed. "It seems like she's just an errand girl for them. I doubt they've even taught her any spells!"

"I wish she thought the same thing," Elle mused. "Then we might be able to persuade her to help." She looked at her wrists, encircled by the iron. "Or if we could figure out how to get these off." She looked at Regine. "I'm allergic to your socks, so it itches."

"Sorry."

Elle shook her head. "Don't be. It's a lot better than the burning from the iron. My skin was getting blistered!"

"Maybe ... since the swelling is down from the burning, maybe you can slip them off now?" Silje said hopefully. "Use the water to help lubricate your skin?"

"It's worth a try," Elle replied, "but ... it won't do a lot of good. I can't do much besides ice and that dazzle thing." She followed Silje to the sink.

For nearly twenty minutes, the girls tugged, pulled, wiggled, wet, and otherwise tried to get Elle's hands free of the cuffs, to no avail, and the iron had burned her skin anew - pretty badly.

"It's no use!" she wailed, crying from both pain of the burning iron and frustration. "Besides, even if we got them off, there's not much I can do. I'm not strong enough to break down the door, and I don't know any spells anyway."

* * * * * * * * * *

The last woman came into their gathering room. "Sorry I took so long to get here," she apologized.

"Not to worry," Helka replied. "We've been busy making preparations, so we wouldn't have been ready to do anything even if you had been here."

"Get in your robes," Alva directed Judit, "and we can finalize our circle."

As Judit left, Helena, Anika's assistant, sidled up beside Gunhild. "What about the other two girls? They're ... just bystanders. Are ... are we going to do something to them?" She sounded, perhaps, a little bit nervous or worried.

"They're just insurance to make sure the queen cooperates with the binding ritual. Don't worry. We don't hurt people," Gunhild replied easily, smiling sweetly at Anika's apprentice.

"Unless they deserve it," Judit smirked.

"Of course," Gunhild agreed. "And that's completely understandable, isn't it, dear?"

Helena nodded, trying to force a smile. "Like ... cheating ex-boyfriends? And abusive parents?"

"Yes, dear," Sigrid, another one of the coven, chimed in. "And others - like bosses who try to pressure a sister into having sex. Someone who cheats you in a deal."

"But ... not for no reason, right?"

Gunhild nodded, as did the others. "Now, be a dear and tend to your tasks."

"Yes, ma'am." Helena scooted off toward one of the massive chamber's doors.

Sigrid watched her go. "She's a good apprentice," she observed before turning back to the complex working she and Gunhild were drawing.

"She's got to get rid of that pesky conscience if she wants to succeed," Gunhild said coldly. "She'll get too concerned about right and wrong, and then she'll mess up spells and workings, or not follow through."

Sigrid looked up at Gunhild. "Does she have any idea what we have planned?"

"No. Otherwise, do you think she'd help?"

"Are we going to give them to Anika?"

Gunhild shrugged. "Anika was the first to speak for them. They're young and pretty - Anika should be able to get enough life force from the two of them to last her quite a while." She smiled at her compatriot. "First, though, we'll have to tap into some of their tantric essence to have enough to complete the binding."

"The Voluptus spell?"

Gunhild grinned. "Of course. They'll give us a lot of tantric essence with that."

"Do you think they'll wear out our help?" Judit butted in, having listened in. "Or do you intend to use that on them, too?"

"You realize that if she knows what her friends are doing - or more accurately, what we're planning to do to them, she'll never cooperate, and we'll never get her bound."

They didn't see the figure detach itself from the shadows of one pillar and sneak out of the chamber.

* * * * * * * * * *

Near Støren, Norway

"We have to hurry up!" Harald Ruud insisted needlessly. It was early in the morning; so far, they'd managed just over eight kilometers per hour because they had to keep stopping to double- check readings at every intersection and side-road, especially since, as time went on, the essence-residue was fading, so Dr. Holgersen had to turn up the gain on his devise, which made it less directional and more prone to false signals. All three men were getting frustrated.

"Stop!" the mad doctor said suddenly. "I've lost the signal again! Pull over so I can check it!"

Magni-Fist groaned, while Mr. Ruud nearly screamed in frustration. It took him a few minutes to find a place to stop, and practically before the car had halted, Dr. Holgersen was out the door, his devise unplugged from the car and scanning by itself.

"Nope," he said firmly after a few seconds. "No residue here."

"So what do we do?" Mr. Ruud asked, getting more concerned, as the doctor clambered back into the car and plugged his detector back into the car's gear.

"Turn around and go back." He cocked his head and thought. "Or else the residue has worn off so much that I can't pick it up any longer, in which case we should go on and hope the women had to use another spell."

"Sjorn!" Magni-Fist snarled, "pick one!"

The doctor sighed, thinking. "Turn around and go back," he said finally. "The signal - was still registering 0.2 micro-E per square meter, so it probably hasn't faded."

"A micro-WHAT?" Mr. Ruud asked as he worked on turning around on the highway. Fortunately, this early in the morning, there wasn't a lot of traffic.

"Micro-E. It's a unit I invented to measure magic energy density." He snorted in disgust. "No-one else recognizes it, though - because they're all too blind to see that it's a perfectly legitimate measure of magic essence flux density, and that it's still present long after magic has been used!"

"Okayyyyy," Mr. Ruud said cautiously. Dr. Holgersen sounded like he was more than a few pickles short of a barrel, but unfortunately, Elle's fate probably rested entirely with the crackpot devisor.

"Here!" Holgersen shouted in triumph. "I picked up the flux reading again! Stop! Turn around again, and drive very slowly! I have to find where it stops!"

According to Dr. Holgersen, the reading stopped just past an intersection where a small mountain road met the highway. After a couple of minutes on the small road, Dr. Holgersen practically chortled, "We've got the trail again!"

"One thing, Mr. Ruud," Magni-Fist spoke up from the back seat, "those ladies used magic, and they are dangerous. I know you want to rescue your daughter. But you're not trained for this. We are. Stay back so you don't get hurt. Don't try to be a hero."

Harald looked like he was biting a lemon. "Okay," he finally muttered.

* * * * * * * * * *

"How about if ...," Elle was grasping at straws, "if ... maybe we can use a piece of metal - like a nail or something - to pick the lock?"

"Maybe," Regine sounded hopefully. The girls began to search the beds, but to no avail.

"All I found is some string," Silje was disappointed.

"If ... there might be something in the plumbing," Regine half-asked, half-stated.

"Do you suppose they were polite enough to leave some wrenches lying around?" Silje asked sarcastically.

"One of the forks!" Regine suddenly asked. "Damn! How could we have not thought of that?"

As Regine took one of the forks, Elle's eyes widened, and she began to rearrange the food bowls and trays and napkins into a disordered mess. Seeing Silje's questioning gaze, she spoke, "If everything is neat, they'll see that a fork is missing."

"Only a boy would think of that," Silje snorted.

Elle paused, giving Silje a 'look'. "Do I look like a boy?"

The sound of a key in the lock caused the girls to stop and stare at the door as it creaked open. Helena stepped smartly in, closing the door behind herself, carrying some bulky folded cloth in her arms.

"Put these on," she commanded Elle, unfolding a simple white gown.

"No," Elle said defiantly, holding her head proudly.

"Then I'll have these two bound, then the two guards will come in and help me make you put it on," the older apprentice mage smirked. She extended the dress toward Elle.

Frowning, her bluff called, Elle took the dress, but as she took it, she thought of something. Holding up her manacled hands, she smiled innocently. "I can't very well get my hands through the sleeves, now, can I?"

Helena had anticipated that eventuality. Smirking, she took one of Elle's hands, led the girl to the door, and rapped on it. A small portal, about eye-height, opened outward. ''Need to unlock one of the shackles."

As one of the large men pulled her hand to the portal and inserted a key, Elle's expression fell; if they only unlocked one of the cuffs, then her magic would still be locked, and since Helena didn't have the key, it was impossible for them to jump her. They'd thought of everything.

The older girl opened the manacle, and after taking off the iron and Regine's synthetic-laced sock, Elle rubbed her wrist in relief that the itching was gone. "Don't worry," the older girl said with a malicious grin, "in an hour or so, you won't need manacles."

Scowling, Elle turned away from the girl, and with Silje and Regine helping her, slipped off her blouse and started to pull on the dress.

"No, no, no," Helena corrected them. "Bra, too. Nothing at all except the dress."

As Elle removed her bra, Helena staggered and nearly collapsed, suddenly pale. If not for the bed, she would have face-planted on the stone floor. "Are ... are you okay?" Elle asked.

"I ... I suddenly feel really ... weak," Helena mumbled.

Silje and Regine knew an opportunity when they saw it; they tackled the older girl to the bed, and while Silje clamped her hand over the girl's mouth and held her neck with the other, Regine patted her down, doing a quick search in case there was something they could use. Alas, there was nothing; Helena and her mentors weren't stupid. The two girls let go of the girl, sighing in frustration that they hadn't been able to take advantage of the unexpected opportunity.

Helena sat back up, wobbling on the bed, while Silje returned to helping Elle put on the dress.

"She ... she wouldn't!" Helena suddenly muttered, her eyes wide. "Not ...." She stopped speaking abruptly, her jaw dropping open.

"Wouldn't what?" Elle demanded.

Helena's mouth hung agape, but the look in her eyes belied the fact that her mind was racing, thinking over something, and as she considered whatever it was, her expression clouded, looking angry, betrayed, sad, and a host of other emotions.

After Elle finished putting on the gown, Helena shakily stood again, holding a bedpost to steady herself. She opened her mouth to speak, then reached out to Elle. Understanding, the Sidhe girl resignedly extended her wrists, one still encircled by a cold iron handcuff, the other, open cuff dangling from a short length of chain. Helena put the open bracelet around Elle's other wrist and closed it.

"I'm sorry," she said to Elle, and there was something in her eyes and voice that told the Sidhe girl that she was being honest. "If I let you get away, they'll kill me. They ... they do things like that." She sighed heavily. "They ... she ... has the power to do that to find me now." She looked at Silje and Regine. "But ... I ... can't let them do that to you, too!"

"Do what?!?" the girls asked simultaneously, concerned by the older girl's sudden change of heart.

"I ... I can't say," Helena lowered her gaze out of guilt and shame. "But ... you can avoid ... what she's done to me." She looked earnestly at the two girls. "When I take your friend, I'll make sure the door is unlocked. You two have to get out of here as fast as you can."

"To go get help?" Regine asked hopefully.

"It'll be too late. She'll be bound to the king," Helena answered. "She won't be hurt, but ... in some matters, she won't be able to say no."

"We're not leaving without her," Silje declared, arms crossed defiantly across her chest, glaring at the older girl.

"You can't!" the girl pleaded.

"Why not? What aren't you telling us?" Regine demanded.

The girl lowered her gaze. "I ... I thought ... he loved me. But ... it was her spell. She cast a spell on us, just so she could use me - and my affair with her husband - as a ... a battery ... to give her tantric energy!"

"What?!?"

"And ... she'll use you, too!" Helena sobbed. "She'll steal your ... your life force, your youth, your vitality - all for her vanity!"

The girls stared at her for several seconds, trying to comprehend what the older girl was telling them, not quite believing what they'd heard.

* * * * * * * * * *

"The trail's very, very faint, but ... it goes into the house there," Dr. Holgersen declared.

"Do we knock?" Harald Ruud asked. His voice quavered from his nervousness.

"Of course we knock," Magni-Fist growled. "But you stay back - these are mages, and they can be very, very dangerous."

"Here," Dr. Holgersen held out a strange looking gun-like device - a mutant hybrid of a blunderbuss pistol and a science-fiction ray-gun with a scope atop the weird barrel. "This is a ... well, it's a ... an energy discharge sphere gun."

"Huh?"

"It shoots special projectile that, when it hits something, discharges it's energy into the target like a ... a high-powered Taser. It also shorts out any attempt to project energy," Holgersen said, exasperated, although his explanation did nothing to clarify the devise's function.

"It won't stop magic, though," Magni-Fist cautioned, "so ... here." He handed both other men charms of some type. "This is no guarantee, but it should help. Just ... try to stay out of the line of fire, and try not to attract attention to yourselves." He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, and it just felt to Mr. Ruud that he was exuding energy. "Ready?"

When the other two nervously nodded, the hero banged on the door, ready for some unexpected surprise to greet him when it opened. For several seconds, the trio waited, but nothing happened. Again, he knocked. Again, there was no answer.

Another deep breath, and then Magni-Fist crashed his hand against the door, which splintered under whatever mutant energy the hero used.

But there was no response of any kind. The small two-room cabin had the usual miscellany of life - a bed that was neatly made, a dresser, a sink and cooktop on a small counter, an overstuffed chair, a bookcase, and a small television. In one corner was a small room - the toilet and bath, obviously.

"Over here," the mad doctor said eagerly, walking directly to a large stone fireplace in which a small fire smoldered, mostly embers that glowed red and orange. "There's more magic residue coming from here."

"The spell?"

"No," Dr. Holgersen shook his head. "There's a lot of magic energy coming from this way. Strong, new spells."

"Here," he said, reaching up under the mantle. Fiddling a bit, he released some kind of catch, and the fireplace rotated ninety degrees, hearth, chimney, and all. "Sometimes, brute force is a little bit of overkill," he smirked.

"Smartass!" Magni-Fist grumbled as he entered the dark mouth of the tunnel.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Into the circle," Helka said sternly to Elle as she and her friends were escorted by the beefy men into the circular chamber.

"No," Elle said defiantly. She was terrified of what these witches were going to do to her. Worse, the older apprentice Helena hadn't had time to arrange an escape for Silje and Regine, and their fates seemed as dire as her own.

"Gunter, Lars," Helka snapped without taking her steely gaze from Elle, "rape them."

The girls' eyes widened with fear. As two large men stalked toward Regine and Silje, who backed up until they were against the wall, terror in their eyes, Elle gulped nervously. "No!" she cried in anguish.

"Then into the circle," Helka snarled, "and lie down on the table.

The men had ahold of the two teenage girls, and Elle whimpered at their plight. "No!" she cried again, stepping hesitantly into the circle carved into the floor. She looked plaintively at the older apprentice, whose eyes were full of guilt at her unwitting role in whatever was about to happen.

With a heart racing with panic, Elle scooted onto the table, then leaned back, taking care to cross her ankles in a feeble attempt at modesty. Her arms were beneath her body, making her completely helpless.

With a grin of triumph, Helka pulled the hood of her robe over her head, which was a signal for the other twelve of the circle to do the same. They stepped solemnly to the circle, to spots which were marked with runes around its periphery, aligned with the stone plinths around the wall.

Tears streamed down the cheeks of Regine and Silje, unable to help their friend, while Elle cried with fear. Elle struggled a little on the table, which was not surprising, but she was bound with cold iron, and there was no way she could use even her limited magic to disrupt what the coven was doing to her. Still, she had to try.

* * * * * * * * * *

A shot rang out as the trio stalked down the tunnels, and Magni-Fist flinched, frightening Holgersen and Harald. Magni-Fist just chuckled, though, and turned enough to shoot a grin at his compatriots. "It's clobberin' time!" he called out in a bad American-English accent, and he charged down the tunnel at whoever had shot.

With a glance at each other, Holgersen and Harald charged after him, weapons ready. "I always wondered what it'd be like to be a hero," Holgersen mused as they ran.

* * * * * * * * * *

The shot echoed down the tunnels, and Helka looked up sharply. Frowning, she returned to the chant that had been interrupted, while the two bulky guards / servants hastily tied up Silje and Regine, then bolted toward the door, drawing weapons from their belts as they ran.

Beneath her, Elle struggled painfully, the cold iron burning into her bleeding blistered wrists, and suddenly, unexpectedly one of the cuffs released from her hand. Her jaw dropping in wonder, she painfully moved her free hand to the small of her back, where Silje had placed one of the forks while Helena had been staggered earlier in the cell.

As the chant continued, Elle struggled with the fork, trying to bend a tine into the primitive lock of the handcuffs, working to get the cuff to somehow release.

She felt a burning sensation, which took her breath away and staggered her, but when it passed, she renewed her efforts.

The shackle opened unexpectedly, and Elle felt a surge of magic come into her. She tried to make ice on the floor, but it didn't go beyond the circle; she didn't know enough about magic yet to understand she was in a fool's circle, which kept her magic fully contained within it, while the magic from outside flowed freely into the circle.

Helka and her coven felt something, and their chant halted abruptly as they gawked at the circle, at where they'd felt a surge of magic. The girl was somehow freed of her shackles, and thus a potential threat if she were able to somehow get out of the circle. With determination, they renewed their chant ....

Just as the door burst open and Magni-Fist stormed into the room. Seeing the girl in a circle, he understood the most immediate danger, and he charged toward the circle, his fist connecting with the skull of one of the coven members, killing her instantly where she stood. His charge was stopped at some kind of magical barrier, but he knew instinctively what it was, and he knelt down on the stone.

Dr. Holgersen came into the room like a bad imitation of a commando doing a room breach, and when he saw the coven, he blindly shot a very strange-looking automatic weapon, which spat forth half a dozen darts, low-velocity projectiles which circled the room before each dove off toward a separate target, homing in on their chosen destinations.

Harald Ruud saw one of the witches turn toward him, so he swung the barrel a little and pulled the trigger. Almost instantly, a glowing sphere of energy shot forth into the woman, discharging in a massive electrical arc that dropped the woman as if she'd been hit by a military-grade Taser.

Elle ran toward the circle, but rebounded from whatever shield contained her. She was about to scream in rage when she saw the large spandex-clad man slam his fist into the floor. The whole room shook, hard enough that two of the plinths collapsed noisily, smashing various books and magical ingredients that were on the crushed shelves. Cracks spread outward from the point of impact, and Elle staggered forward as the barrier of the magic circle broke.

One of the coven tried to grab Elle, and in her panic, the energy that had been building released spontaneously, creating a small herd of aurora-colored, glowing wolf-shaped hobgoblins that added to the chaos in the room.

Elle rushed to her friends, struggling to free them from their bonds, while behind her, Magni-Fist was a little too enthusiastic in hitting one of the henchmen who'd swung at him, dropping the man with a shattered ribcage, the splinters of which had shredded the poor man's lungs and heart.

Across the room, watching the chaos, Helena gawked in disbelief as her mistress, Anika, began a working, her eyes burning with rage and energy cracking around her fingertips. Something inside Helena snapped - rage at discovering she'd been used, a conscience which had reasserted itself, or one of a dozen other reasons, and she bent over one of the fallen coven members, grabbing the woman's athame. Scowling angrily, she stalked up behind her double-crossing mistress, and raising the black magic knife, she plunged it deliberately and viciously into Anika's back.

The energy which had been crackling around the witch's hands released into a cloud that engulfed both master and apprentice, a blinding, dancing sphere of magical lightning that caused both to convulse in spasms, and as the energy dissipated, both women collapsed to the floor.

"Look!" Regine called out as she, Elle, and Silje hastened toward the door. They stopped, eyes wide in shock and amazement as the two women collapsed. What happened next, though, is what riveted their attention. Anika, having spent so many years stealing vitality from all her apprentices while giving them nothing in return, suddenly gave up that energy, in seconds aging eighty or ninety years, until she was a wrinkled, aged corpse. Meanwhile, Helena convulsed as she absorbed the energy which had been stolen from her, and more. As the crackling energy subsided, the girl was a mere baby, crying in a sea of clothing that surrounded her.

Meanwhile, seeing more of the angry coven members shaking off their confusion or fighting against the rampaging hobgoblins, Dr. Holgersen loosed another round of his self-guided darts, and more of the witches - and two henchmen - went down when the tranquilizing darts struck home. One of the hobgoblins bit viciously into his ankle, and as he fell, he dropped his dart gun and pulled out a simple Sig-Sauer pistol. The weapon barked twice, and the hobgoblin dissolved as its energy lost its cohesiveness and dissipated.

"Come on!" Magni-Fist roared to his companions. Harald clutched Elle in one hand, and Silje's with his other; the latter girl had a firm grasp of the third girl, Regine. Dr. Holgersen got to his feet, limping badly, and hobbled to the door into the chamber.

"Hold on!" Elle called out, breaking away from her dad. She ran across the shattered circle, pausing to scoop up the baby from the pile of clothing, and then followed her friends out of the room.

Glancing to make sure all of the 'good guys' were out of the room, Magni-Fist stopped in the doorway, the thick wall of stone that separated the tunnel from the chamber, and smashed into the rock. Cracks appeared, and rocks and dust began to fall, so he darted back down the tunnel, herding his companions ahead of himself. Behind him, the shattered rock gave way, and the entrance collapsed in a mass of dust and boulders, at least temporarily locking the surviving members of the coven inside.

* * * * * * * * * *

The group gathered around Dr. Holgersen's small car, everyone staring in dismay at the thought of cramming seven of them - even though three were teenage girls and one was but a baby, while on the other extreme, one was a hulking brute - into the sub-compact.

"I'll stay here to wait for the police," Magni-Fist magnanimously volunteered. "We'll need to make a report anyway, so ...."

"Or," Dr. Holgersen said with a grin as he walked toward the group, "we can take one of their cars!" He pointed back to a lightly wooded area that had a number of cars parked in it, which had been somewhat hidden from view when the heroes had first arrived. "I figured they couldn’t have gathered here without at last some of them driving, so ..."

"But ... the cars are locked, and we don't have the keys!" Harald protested. The thought of stealing a car, on top of the fight they'd been in, was unsettling to him.

"Were locked," Holgersen gloated, holding up a small device that looked like a key fob. "Take your pick; I checked - this little baby will run any one of them."

"It's better if I just wait," Magni-Fist volunteered again.

The remainder of the group crowded into Holgersen's little car - the girls in the back, holding the baby, and Mr. Ruud and Holgersen in the front. The drive would be much quicker without having to follow a faint trail of magic residue; it was only fifty or so kilometers to Trondheim, the others could take the train back to Meraker.

As they drove, the girls finally started smiling and joking, a good sign that they'd shaken off the trauma of the kidnapping and ordeal.

"So what are we going to do about Helena?" Elle finally asked as she cradled the baby. "She didn't deserve this happening to her."

"Maybe she did," Regine philosophized. "Who knows how much time she'd spent apprenticed to the coven? Maybe it's God's way of giving her a second chance."

"Well, it's not like we can take her back to her parents," Silje noted. "She said that she was an orphan, so she doesn't have anywhere to go."

"Maybe ...," Elle started thoughtfully, but then she halted.

"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?" Mr. Ruud was suddenly concerned by Elle's train of thought.

"If she doesn't have anywhere to go," Elle replied. "And ... we kind of owe her."

"But ... she didn't do anything to help us!" Regine protested.

"She couldn't," Silje countered. "She warned us, and tried to help us get away."

"But not Elle!"

"She said she couldn't," Elle reminded them. "But she was going to help you two get away! And she warned us what they were planning to do." Then her face screwed up as she thought of something. "I don't understand, though, what happened to the one manacle! I felt you press the fork into my back under the rope tie, but ... the other first cuff opened before I could use it."

Silje grinned. "Remember when she collapsed on the bed, and she was pretty drained? In her confusion, I took the string from the bed and jammed it into the lock." She shrugged, a worry-wrinkle on her forehead. "It was the only thing I could think of."

Elle gave her a quick hug, careful not to disturb the baby who was at that moment calm. "It was pretty clever, and it worked."

* * * * * * * * * *

Near Støren, Norway

Dusty, coughing, the women dragged themselves to their feet. Their working room was a shambles - three of the stone pillars had collapsed, with several of the lintels, and much of their supplies of magic ingredients and tomes had been ruined, obliterated beneath tons of rocks. The entranceway was likewise a shambles - collapsed rock and rubble blocking the entrance and trapping the coven in their chamber.

Already, the two men who'd been in the chamber were at work, moving the stone, while the same effort could be heard outside the chamber. Their imprisonment was only temporary.

Worse, though, were the losses to their coven. Helka, Anika, Judit, and Ulla were dead - two from massive magic backlash as their working collapsed, Helka from a crushed skull, and Anika from her vindictive apprentice. It would take the coven time to recruit four new members and to train them, before they'd have even close to the power they'd had only hours before.

As the scope of the disaster began to sink in, the chamber rumbled, and then, in the center of the shattered circle, mists and vapors began to appear, and then to congeal into a ghostly figure, an oversized bust of an old, balding man with pointed ears, a ragged beard, and a horrible scar across his nose and cheek. The specter looked around slowly, taking in the chaos, an expression of disappointment on his face.

"You have failed me," a sad voice echoed in the chamber as the lips of the ghostly man moved. "I trusted your circle."

"She ... she is more powerful than we anticipated," Gunhild said cautiously, knowing it was a feeble excuse for their failure.

"Your mothers' mothers' mothers made an oath," the head said, shaking his head. "You were to find my queen, to prepare her for me" He deliberately looked around again. "Yet I do not see her! All I see is the chaos of failure, of a broken oath."

"We ... we weren't quite ready, Dúrnir," Gunhild pleaded. "We ... need more time."

Dúrnir's ghost sneered at them. "Very well. I shall give you one more chance," he said softly, but his words were perhaps even more menacing because of their soft intensity, "but only because I need to find a suitable host for my spirit. Do not fail me again ...."

"We won't fail you, King Dúrnir!"

"I hope you don't!" He shook his head sadly before his visage faded slowly, staring at the frightened women to the very last.

* * * * * * * * * *

Early April
Meraker, Norway

"Mom!" Elle called out, a bit of distress in her voice. "Mooommm!"

Mrs. Ruud rushed to Elle's bedroom, pausing to knock. "Elle? Are you okay?"

"Come in," Elle whimpered.

Now nervous, Mrs. Ruud burst through the door, wondering what was going on. Her jaw dropped to see Elle sitting on her bed, naked from the waist down, her legs spread open and staring at her thighs. "What, honey?" she said, closing the door behind her.

"Mom," Elle sobbed, and Mom could see that the girl's cheeks were tear-stained. "Look!" She pointed at the inside of her left thigh.

Mrs. Ruud gawked at Elle, then knelt on the floor before the girl, looking where Elle had indicated. Her eyes widened in shock. "What ... what is it?" she managed to stammer.

"I don't know, Mom," Elle cried. "It ... it's where ... when the witches kidnapped me, they ... they were doing that ... that ritual," she sobbed, "and ... and then it kind of ... kind of burned ... for a second."

"What? Did you report that?"

"No," the girl cried. "Because after, there wasn't anything there, so I didn't ... didn't think about it."

"It looks ... kind of like a rune. Or a sigil," Mom reported. She bit her lip for a few seconds. "I think maybe we should show one of the heroes ...."

"MOOOMMMMM!!" Elle shrieked, shocked that her mother would suggest such a thing.

"I meant we can take a picture ...."

"MOM!" Elle cried again. "I ... I can't do that!"

Mom scooted onto the bed beside her daughter, wrapping an arm around Elle. "I meant that I could take a picture, then edit it and crop it so it only shows the mark," she tried to reassure the girl.

"They ... the coven ... was trying to bind me," Elle said, worry wrinkles lining her forehead, "to Dúrnir, the dwarf king. What if ... what if ... they succeeded? What if I am bound to him?"

"We'll figure out something, honey," Mom reassured the girl. "I'm sure you're worried about nothing." Privately, though, Mom was worried. Magic was something that wasn't logical or predictable, and thus it frightened her.

* * * * * * * * * *

Late April
Meraker, Norway

Elle sat on the glacier, as she now enjoyed doing when she dreamt. Overhead, the lights of the aurora shone brightly, wavering slowly with the ebb and flow of energy and the rare molecules of the most upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere. It was strangely peaceful and quiet and extraordinarily beautiful. It was also a good place to contemplate things, and to talk with Aegloswen.

"Why are you so sad?" Aegloswen asked, startling Elle. She hadn't even noticed the approach of the Sidhe spirit-girl.

"I ... I'm scared," Elle admitted. "I had another dream - about the dwarf king, and being bound to him, being a servant, a concubine, a sex-slave. It ...," she didn't even try to suppress the shudder that shook her entire body, "it was awful!"

"Yes," Aegloswen agreed, "that would be very unpleasant."

"What if ... what if they succeeded? What if that's what the mark means?" Elle was nearly in tears again.

Aegloswen sat beside her and hugged her, pulling Elle's head onto the Sidhe girl's shoulder. "I've been thinking about that," she said to the distraught girl.

"Do you know ... what it means? Everyone who's seen the picture thinks it's some kind of sigil, or fancy rune, but nobody knows what it means."

"It's ...." Aegloswen paused, thinking a bit as she chose her words carefully. "It's a Sidhe symbol."

"Sidhe? A symbol for what?"

"It's ... it's a royal mark," Aegloswen replied hesitantly.

"Like ... like I am marked then! As ... as the king's property?"

"No, nothing like that. It's ...," Aegloswen paused again, "it's like ... a birthmark. A symbol of a royal household."

"The king's household? So I'm marked as his?"

"No. I ... I know I've seen it before, but I can't remember!" The Sidhe spirit clutched Elle tightly. "I had a vision," she said slowly. "A dream, I think."

"Oh? About what?"

"About a gathering place far away," Aegloswen said. "A sanctuary of safety and scholarship. And ... and the Sidhe queen we saw in my one vision. And ... my sister."

"Your sister?"

Aegloswen winced. "I think it was my sister. I'm not sure, because I don't really remember."

* * * * * * * * * *

Elle did a double-take at the image on the screen of her computer. "Mom!" she called out.

"She's at her club meeting," Elle's dad called back. "Do you need something?"

Elle thought a moment. "Maybe," she said. She waited for her dad to come into her bedroom, then pointed to the display. "Look what I found!"

Dad, too, did a double-take. "She ... she looks like you!" he exclaimed softly.

Elle nodded. "Except she's a redhead." She stared at the incredibly beautiful girl in the image Elle had found while browsing.

"She's got the same ears," Mr. Ruud commented, "and the same shape to her face and eyes! If you had the same hair color, you two could practically be sisters."

Elle's jaw dropped. "Sisters?" she stammered in disbelief. "Aegloswen ...."

"I'll never get used to you having some kind of spirit living in your head," Dad chuckled.

"How do you think I feel?" Elle shot right back. "Anyway, she said she had a ... a vision, or dream, about a sanctuary, a place of learning, and a sister!"

"Do you think this could be her?"

"I don't know," Elle replied slowly. "But ... if there's a sanctuary, a place of safety, maybe ... maybe I should ...." She couldn't quite complete the thought.

"You're thinking that maybe it'd be a little safer for you if you went there?" Dad asked, already knowing the answer.

"They didn't catch all the coven," Elle said, cringing. "So, I'm a little worried ...."

Mr. Ruud took his daughter in his arms. "So am I, honey. Your mother and I are both worried that they'll try something again." He let her slip from his arms, turning her so he could look right at her. "I'll call Magni-Fist or Dr. Holgersen, and see if they know anything."

* * * * * * * * * *

Early May
Oslo, Norway

"Nervous?" Mom asked as they strode from the transit station toward an office building that they had been directed to. It was peculiar; this district was a business district, not the place that one would expect to find the place they were going to.

"Yeah, kind of," Elle answered, feeling a little dry-mouthed as she thought about what the meeting might mean. "Wouldn't you be?"

After Elle's dream and the strange mark, they'd asked a few questions of Magni-Fist and Dr. Holgersen, but they hadn't heard any response. And then came an invitation to Oslo, to meet with not only Magni-Fist and Dr. Holgersen, but also a few government ministers. And a superhero team from Germany.

The building seemed to be a conventional office building, which increased the mystery, and as the elevator rose to the twelfth floor, Elle's hands started sweating, and she had difficulty swallowing as nerves were getting the better of her. Only the fact that her mom and dad seemed so non-plussed by the entire invitation kept her from running away.

They walked to suite twelve-oh-two, which was one of only two business suites on the floor, and gingerly walked in. It looked like a normal business - a receptionist at a desk, a modern waiting area, and coffee for visitors. Even the professional logo - Thor's Guild, AS - was done in artwork that looked like any of hundreds of other businesses in Oslo, or indeed, anywhere else in Europe.

"Are you sure we have the right place?" Elle whispered to her mom after the receptionist directed them to the leather chairs. "And at least they're not plastic or vinyl seats!"

The girl's opinion of the place changed instantly when Magni-Fist came out of the back offices in his hero attire. "Elle!" he said warmly to the girl. "How are you doing?"

"It's been a lot less ... exciting," Elle answered, smiling. There had been a few meetings with Dr. Holgersen and Magni-Fist, as well as a couple of other heroes from Northern Europe.

"Well, you're still a bit of a sensation," Magni-Fist replied with a grin. "We even had heroes from France wanting to come to meet you."

Elle's eyes nearly bugged out. "What?" she managed to squeak.

The hero chuckled. "Don't worry," he replied. "We didn't let your growing fan-base come. Just a few key people who are important to our discussion."

"Okay," the girl and her parents breathed a sigh of relief.

"Shall we go in the back and meet everyone?" Magni-Fist led them to a conference room in the inner offices, where a number of people were already waiting.

Three of the people looked quite out of place, considering that they were the only ones in business attire, whereas everyone else was in some kind of hero attire and disguise. They were introduced as the Minister of Energy, the Minister of Education and Research, and the Minister of Paranormal Affairs. Three women looked like some kind of fantasy female warriors; from a previous meeting, Elle knew they were the Valkyrie triplets even without the introductions.. Magni-Fist's 'Viking Warrior' theme seemed almost perfectly suited. Other members of the team had a mixture of lore and legend, all with Norse theme. A couple of heroes had different costumes; when the introductions came to a petite woman, Elle was surprised to find she was a French woman called Mage Astre, - a magic specialist who'd been called in especially to help assess Elle's powers and progress.

"Well, let's get to it," Magni-Fist called the informal meeting to order.

"Thor's Guild and Dr. Holgersen consulted us after the events of the past few months," the Minister of Paranormal Affairs began, "we have been considering your case. Since the coven has been reconstituting itself ...."

"Why are you letting that happen?" Mrs. Ruud demanded angrily. "After what they tried ...."

The minister shook her head. "The only ones guilty of prosecutable crimes were killed in the ... unfortunate incident."

"But ... they all ..." Elle began angrily.

"They could not be prosecuted, as they were under Sorcerer's Contracts," the minister explained patiently, "and thus are not guilty of instigating the events. Only the leader, the one to whom they were bound by the contract, are legally culpable."

"But that's crazy!" Elle practically screamed. Elle's mother, too, wasn't happy with that news.

One of the Valkyries seated next to Elle put her hand on the girl's arm reassuringly. "Yes, it really sucks, Elle," she said sympathetically, "but you have to look at it this way. The law also protects mutants from unjust prosecution."

"With the coven legally reforming, we don't feel that we can give you the around-the-clock protection you probably need," Magni-Fist interrupted the minister's explanation.

"And you need a special type of education," the minister regained control, shooting a dirty glance at the hero for having stolen some of her thunder. "Your educational needs can't be met by any conventional school in Norway."

"So ... what are you saying? That you're just going to give up on my daughter's education?" Mr. Ruud asked bluntly, and a bit unhappily.

"No, not at all," Magni-Fist countered. "We are aware of some educational opportunities which would provide protection and the special tutoring Elle's magic potential requires."

"But ... are you talking about ... sending her somewhere?" Mom goggled at the hero.

Before Magni-Fist or the Minister of Education could speak, the French hero in a very stylish spandex outfit spoke up. "I believe I know what they are thinking, cherie," she practically purred in a very thick French accent. "And I agree. It would provide you with an education that cannot be beat for people with our special type of powers."

"The one thing, though," Magni-Fist said, cringing, "is that the school is quite expensive."

"Oh?"

"Which is why we have the Minister of Education and the Ministry of Energy here," Magni-Fist continued. "The government has set aside a certain percentage of oil revenues for educational purposes, and we propose a special scholarship for you."

"How much of a 'special scholarship'?" the Minister of Energy asked very warily, his eyes narrowed as if they were talking about his own personal bank account.

Magni-Fist took a pad of paper and wrote a number on it, then shoved it across the table. The Energy Minister took it, then did a double take as his eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets. He stared at the paper for several agonizingly long seconds.

"It's a boarding school," Magni-Fist added, "and that figure includes all fees and living expenses."

The man's eyes narrowed, and he did some mental calculations. "Well, it's still a bit expensive, but for a four-year scholarship ...."

"That's per year," Magni-Fist corrected him.

"Per year?" The man looked like he was going to choke on the figures. "For that, I need to know a lot more about the school."

"I'm sorry, but you cannot know, Monsieur," Mage Astre said, shaking her head. "For reasons of security, for both Madmoiselle Ruud and for the security of the school and other students."

The group argued for nearly an hour about the pros and cons of sending Elle to a special school, with Elle and her parents feeling relegated to observer status, before finally, everyone was in agreement. The tuition and fees would be paid by the Energy Ministry through a special, untraceable account, just to provide adequate security all around. Thor's Guild would be responsible for reporting her progress to both ministries.

When it looked like everything was settled, except for a contract among the interested parties, the ministers left, but everyone else remained seated at the table, confusing the girl and her parents. They all looked questioningly at Magni-Fist, who looked at their French visitor.

"I would like to discuss another matter," Mage Astre said when all eyes were on her. "Your school term is over in just over three weeks, non?"

"Yes," Elle replied, looking questioningly at her parents, and around the rest of the table.

"I 'ave discussed your situation with the members of this team," she continued, "and we all agree that you need some special tutoring, as soon as possible, to 'elp you avoid certain ... mis'aps, and to learn some basic spells to 'elp you defend yourself."

"Okay," Mr. Ruud said slowly. "What ... are you proposing?"

"After several ... situations ...," the French woman began to explain, "our government 'as entered into pacts with other EU nations - mostly bilateral, because not all governments 'ave the same opinion of paranormals - in which we provide ... apprenticeships for mutants and empowered individuals that need extra tutoring to control."

"Wait," Mrs. Ruud began to catch on, and she sounded like she wasn't sure she liked where the conversation was going, "are you suggesting that you take Elle to tutor her now?!? For the whole summer?"

"Non, Madame," the French woman replied quickly. "I would like to spend a few days tutoring 'er, starting this weekend if possible," she explained to soothe the ruffled feathers of a mother who'd been confronted with having her daughter leave home a lot sooner than she expected. "It would be teaching 'er some basic exercises to 'elp her control 'er essence, so she 'as fewer ... mis'aps. Then after the school term is over, she can spend three or four weeks with my team in Bordeaux, where we will tutor 'er in magic and other topics which will 'elp 'er with the school next fall."

"So ... you're only talking a few weeks? Not the whole summer?" Mr. Ruud seemed a little mollified by her explanation.

"Oui, Monsieur," the French woman answered soothingly. "Think of it as ... a summer 'oliday for 'er."

Elle's eyes popped open at the sound of a few weeks in France on holiday before she had to go to the 'special school'. "Please, Mom," she begged, "it'll be good for me!"

"It won't be a carefree vacation," Magni-Fist cautioned her. "And I strongly suspect that you will be tutored in French as well as magic."

Elle gawked at the French woman, who just nodded and smiled.

"If she'll be safer, and if it's only for a few weeks," Mrs. Ruud said after exchanging glances with her husband, "then I suppose it's best for her."

"Good," Magni-Fist said. "Now, let's talk some about the school." Most of the remaining people left, leaving only the Ruud family, Magni-Fist, the French woman, and another member of Thor's Guild. It seemed almost conspiratorial.

"Okay, to begin with, the 'special' school is a boarding school in America, and every student there is a mutant," Magni-Fist began with a soothing smile. "It's the best school of its kind in the world."

"And two girls from near Bordeaux are students - one will be a new freshman like you - so you'll 'ave plenty of time to talk with them about the school. It should 'elp you to already know students there."

* * * * * * * * * *

Late May
Stockholm, Sweden

The boy rolled over and over as he slept fitfully, tossing and turning. By morning, he was exhausted, and he looked every bit that and more, like he was seriously ill. His mother, naturally, held him out of school, taking him to the doctor instead. The doctor, however, couldn't find anything wrong with him, so he was sent home, neither he nor his mother understanding why he felt so poorly.

By the nightfall, he looked and felt worse, running a small fever, and as he tossed and turned, he felt an odd presence with him, as if someone was watching over his shoulder. In his imagination, fueled by the burning fever, he imagined that someone was talking to him.

"You will be my vessel," a strange-looking man said to him. "And I will give you power and riches beyond your wildest dreams! And we will find a queen, one with beauty and station worthy of us!"

The boy awoke after a long night of such dreams and hallucinations. He went out to his parents, to tell them that he felt a lot better.

The boy's mother, though, took one look at him, and she managed to scream as she fainted. Alarmed, the boy's dad took him into the bathroom, to a mirror.

The boy's eyes were the color and texture of granite, but generously sprinkled with flecks of gold.

* * * * * * * * * *

FIN (for now)

Den Sovende Kong                                                    The Sleeping King
...

Alt sitt gull for et kyss                                                All his gold for a kiss
Hans rike for hennes hånde                                                 His kingdom for her hand
Kongen lengtes etter hennes bryst                              The King longs for her breast
...
Dronningen er borte                                                    The queen is gone
Hennes tid opprant                                                   Her time is done
Den onde slo søstrene i hjel                                      The evil one slew the sisters
...
Hjertet brast da hun forlot                           Heartbroken that she has left him
Kongen sover                                                           The king sleeps
Inntil hun er hans                                                      Until she is his
...
Heksene vaker,                                                      The witches wait
Sirkelen smid i blodsed                                    A circle forged in a blood oath
Binde dronningen ved heimkomst            To bind the queen when she returns
Sirkelen eller forgår                                                  Or the circle will perish
...
Skjebne oppfylt                                                        Destiny fulfilled
En gave inn til kongen                                              A gift to the king
som våkner til fastsatt tid                                         Who awakes at the appointed hour
...
Dvergene fester på øl og kjøtt                                  The dwarves feast on ale and meat
På bryllupsfesten                                                     At the wedding feast
Som et nytt rike oppstå i fjellet                                As a new kingdom arises in the mountains
...
På ny Drotten styrer                                               The king reigns again
Så sønner og sønnesønn                            Then sons and their sons
Dronningen frambåret                             Born by the queen
...
Sirkelen er løst fra gjeld                                    The circle unbound from debt
....