Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

looking for a niche similar to the one in which he had originally found the ring seventeen years before. He would have to be very careful to make clear notes of where he had hidden it, or else it might be lost for another ten centuries.
    But maybe he shouldn’t conceal it? The ring had not revealed itself to him and Dr Ásgrímur merely to be removed from the world again. It was making an entrance into the affairs of men.
    It wanted to be discovered.
    The hiding place in the altar at Hruni church wasn’t the best. A determined police team, or anyone else for that matter, could find it there. But it was the right place.
    The pastor took off the ring and grasped it in his hand. He closed his eyes and tried to feel what the ring was telling him.
    It was the right place.
    He turned on his heel and began walking back towards Hruni at a brisk pace. He checked his watch. He would be lucky to be home by nightfall.
    Ingileif’s house, or rather her family’s house, was on a bank over-looking the river that ran through Flúdir. Flúdir itself was a prosperous village with a convenience store, an hotel, two schools, some municipal buildings and a number of geothermally powered greenhouses – Ingileif said it had the best farming in Iceland. But no church: the parish church was at Hruni, three kilometres away.
    Although the village itself wasn’t up to much, the view was spectacular. To the west was the valley of the glacial River Hvítá, with its ancient settlement at Skálholt, the site of Iceland’s first cathedral, and to the north were the glaciers themselves, thick slabs of white running a dead-straight horizon between mountain peaks.
    Hekla was out of sight, behind the hills to the south-east.
    The house was a single-storey affair, cosy, but large enough for a family of five. Magnus and Ingileif spread out the contents of several cardboard boxes on the floor of Ingileif’s mother’s bedroom. There were indeed a dozen letters from Tolkien to Högni, Ingileif’s grandfather, which had only come into her father’s possession after Högni’s death. Ingileif showed Magnus a first edition of The Fellowship of the Ring , the first volume of The Lord of the Rings . Magnus recognized the handwriting of the inscription inside: To Högni Ísildarson, one good story deserves another, with thanks and all good wishes, J.R.R. Tolkien, September 1954 .
    They studied a folder of notes and maps, most of which were in Dr Ásgrímur’s handwriting, which showed guesses of where the ring might be hidden. There were also notes and letters from Hákon, the pastor. They dealt with various folk tales he had researched. There were several pages on the story of Gissur and the troll sisters of Búrfell, which was a mountain close to Gaukur’s farm at Stöng. There was also a mention of a story about a shep-herd girl named Thorgerd who ran off with an elf.
    ‘Do you have elves in America?’ Ingileif asked.
    ‘Not as such,’ said Magnus. ‘We got drug dealers, we got pimps, we got mobsters, we got crooked lawyers, we got investment bankers. No elves. But if we ever do have any problems with elves in the South End, I know right where to come for help. We could do an exchange with the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police.’
    ‘So you didn’t hear any stories about them when you were a kid?’
    ‘Oh, yes, especially when I was living with my grandparents in Iceland. My dad was more into sagas than elves and trolls. But I do remember asking him about them.’ Magnus smiled at the memory. ‘I guess I was fourteen. We were hiking in the Adirondacks. That was my favourite thing, hiking with my dad. My brother wouldn’t come, so it was just me and him. We spoke nothing but Icelandic to each other for a whole week. We talked about everything.
    ‘I can remember exactly where we were, on the shore of Raquette Lake. We were eating a sandwich sitting on a rock that looked like a troll. Dad told me how the Icelanders would have invented a long involved story about it. Then I asked him whether he believed in elves.’
    ‘And what did he say?’
    ‘He kind of dodged the question. So I pressed him on it. He was a mathematician, he spent all his life dealing in proofs, there was no proof that elves existed.
    ‘So he gives me a long lecture about how although there is no proof that elves exist there is equally no absolute proof that they don’t. So science can’t answer the question. He said although he didn’t believe in elves, he was too