If you go far enough south, you hit the ship-breaking ice, and in beyond it is Niflheim. Now, if you find the right spot, you can find what they call The Spire or The Spike. It's like a great mix of a tower and a mountain peak, but it's taller, hundreds of feet, than any tower made by manskind. But it's no more than a chain across, not like any natural mountain you've ever seen either. The Spike sits right at or just past the edge of the ice, and then a great long spit of rock knifes off South for leagues and leagues til it hits Niflheim proper. Some call that spit of land The Spear.
That's the only way to get into that cold land down there. Whoever controls The Spike controls Niflheim. Unless you've got the gold to build an icesailing ship, but I've never seen one of them. I've heard tell that long ago the elves used to build them, but what the elves had to do in Niflheim no one knows.
[Willyd Nilsson, A.I. 811]
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