. . .

Joffun climbs through seamless passages. Months pass. He makes through hidden ways. Most of a year has gone. He pushes aside a flagstone and comes up by the ornamental bridge in the back yard of Mr. Gulley, whereupon he moves in under it. He makes a horrible face. He crosses his arms and he sits down firmly, like the bridge troll that he is not.

Helissent stares out the window at him for a while.

She calls Mr. Gulley over.

“Honey,” she says. She is weightily pregnant. “There is a dwarf in our back yard.”

“A svart-elf,” he says.

She looks at him.

“They’re called svart-alfar,” he says. “Because . . . well, because that is what they are called. They are presumably svarter than the other alfar, or alfer than the other svarts.”

“I see,” she says, because she does. “What does it want?”

“I don’t want to know,” says Mr. Gulley miserably.

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