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The pyramid stood only as high as Eirik's knee, nearly swallowed up by the fractured landscape. It was composed entirely of carefully stacked black stones. His sister stuttered to a halt before it.
Eirik joined her, most of his body drenched in sweat, though his exposed nose and cheeks burned in the bitter cold. He opened his mouth to tell Alfdis to replace her hood.
"Take my hand," she said before the words could leave his tongue. She stuck a slim white hand out of her furs.
Eirik obeyed warily. "Do the stones mark a hidden way?"
"Yes and no," Alfdis answered. "On the hidden paths, where we now walk, they mark a meeting of the ways. A gate." She raised wide blue eyes to meet his. "A gate with more than one entrance and exit."
Eirik swallowed and tightened his grip on her hand. "Do they talk?"
The corners of Alfdis's mouth twitched upwards. "No, a cairn is not a troll."
Thank the night for small blessings. "How to we know where to go?"
In answer, Alfdis let her eyes fall gently closed, stilling her face. Eirik kept one eye on her and on the other trained on the surrounding night.
The world repainted itself around them. There was no lurch, no dizzying flight, no sensation of movement, at all. The shape of the darkness around them—black dust, bloated lumps of moss-covered lava rocks, shadowed splotches of snow—was wiped away, like colors doused in water, to reveal a new world. The only constants were Eirik and Alfdis, the pile of rocks, and the cold night.
Alfdis opened her eyes in wonder. "I did it," she whispered.
They were on a black stone beach. Eirik took a step and slipped as his boot encountered slick pebbles instead of hard earth. He stumbled and caught himself, cursing. The ocean rose in a familiar, ominous form.
"Wave!" Eirik yelled, and grabbed Alfdis, crushing her to his chest as he anchored himself to the ground, tightened every muscle in his body, and held his breath.
The icy water crashed over them. Alfdis shrieked, but they withstood both the impact and the swift, relentless pull back out to sea. As the waters retreated, Eirik shook his dripping head roughly and yanked Alfdis away from the shoreline. "Come on," he urged, "the next one's building already." Salt prickled on his lips and burned his eyes.
Alfdis stumbled after him and the next wave fell harmlessly in their wake; foam surged around their boots. Eirik paused just beyond the water's reach to catch his breath.
"I'm soaked!" Alfdis wailed. "Who on earth thought this would be a good place to put a gate?"
"Who goes blindly through the hidden gates?" a stern voice demanded from behind them.
Eirik whirled. A tall, slender form was silhouetted in a gap between the surrounding rocks. In the darkness, he could not make out the man's features, but his voice had an authoritative ring.
Alfdis gulped at his side. "It," she stuttered, "it is I, Alfdis Halkellsdottir. I come as called."
There was a long silence. Eirik unobtrusively shifted his stance and let both hands hover around his ax hilts.
"Do you also," the tall man asked finally, "answer to Alfdis Sigridursdottir?"
"I do," Alfdis confirmed without hesitation, her voice ringing proudly.
There was another, shorter hesitation, and then the man tendered a slight bow. "My deepest apologies... Halkellsdottir. I did not intend... you to hear the summons. Nor did I suppose you would have learned to follow the gates. I fault the strength of the pull. Your forgiveness."
"She might have drowned," Eirik exclaimed angrily, ignoring the horrified glare his sister fixed on him.
The man walked forward slowly, emerging into the moonlight as platinum haired and fine featured. Wrinkles touched the corners of his eyes, but the eyes themselves looked ageless, luminescent, dark silver. His otherworldly beauty was marred by the arrogant twist of his lips. "Who is your manservant, Alfdis?"
"He's not my servant," Alfdis told the stranger nervously. "He's my brother. My—my half brother." She shot Eirik a scalding look, as if this were his fault.
One elegant white brow lifted. "So," the man said. He turned to consider Eirik with his piercing silver gaze. "You are the priest's son?"
Eirik straightened to his full height, which matched that of the older hulduman—for he could be nothing else. "I am Eirik Audunsson," he said boldly. "My father is a Christian priest of the Ice Island, and my uncle is Thorgeir Thorkelsson Ljosvetningagothi, Lawspeaker of the Island."
"A fearsome lineage, young Eirik," the hulduman told him gravely. "But not one that will aid you now. Our world is forbidden to men. I risk much, allowing little Alfdis passage, but it seems to me now that she has come too far on her own for certain lessons to be safely neglected. Once, perhaps..."
"Why the summons?" Alfdis interrupted. "Is it a birth?"
