Ben is entreated by Fillip and Sot, two of a race of thievish "G'Home Gnomes" to rescue some of their people from a clan of trolls. They manage to do so, but barely escape with their lives. They finally decide to ask for the help of the witch Nightshade, and travel to her home in the marshes known as the Deep Fell. She tells Ben to enter the Fairy Mists, where he may be able to obtain mind-controlling Io Powder to use on Strabo. Ben does so and endures a series of frightening trials by the Fairy creatures to obtain the powder. Emerging from the mists, he finds that Nightshade has used her magic to banish all of his companions to Abbadon, Landover's underworld. Nightshade attempts to trick Ben out of his Io Powder, but Ben uses some of the substance on the witch and sends her to an uncertain fate in the Fairy Mists.