The elf's expression soured as he neared the small field surrounding the giant oak tree. Mickey was there, as arranged, sitting against the tree, intently reading a book. But Mickey was alone, and that was not according to the plan.
"Just like a bunch o' dwarfs to go off chasing some long-lost treasure," the elf, with his sharp ears, heard Mickey mutter lightheartedly. "Never could resist a gem or bit o' gold and always claiming that it was their own from the start!"
Mickey looked up then, sensing the elf's approach. "And a good day to ye, Kelsey!" he declared, not bothering to rise.
"Where is he?" Kelsey demanded. "I have gone to great trouble to make all the arrangements in time and Baron Pwyll is not a patient man. You agreed to have him here today."
"And so I did," Mickey replied.
There came a high-pitched giggle from above. Kelsey knew the forest at least as well as Mickey, and seeing the leprechaun holding the strange book and hearing the call from above, he looked up at the towering oak and quickly figured out the riddle.
"Leshiye," Kelsey grumbled.
He turned back to Mickey, still absorbed by the book. "How long has he been up there?"
Mickey put a hand over his eyes to regard the position of the sun. "Two hours, by now," he said. "He's a scrapper, this one!"
Kelsey didn't appreciate Mickey's lightheartedness; not where his life-quest was concerned. "Why did you not stop him?" the elf demanded, his golden eyes flashing with anger.
"Think what ye're asking," Mickey shot back. "Stop a healthy young man from getting at a nymph's offered charms? I'd as soon try to catch a dragon in me hat" - he pulled off his tam-o'-shanter and held it out upside down in front of him - "and make the beast warm up me dinner stew."
Kelsey couldn't argue against the leprechaun's claims of helplessness. Nymphs were a powerful foe where young men were concerned, and this one, Leshiye, was as skillful at her seductive arts as any in all Tir na n'Og. "Is he the proper size to wear the armor?" Kelsey asked, obviously disgusted.
On Mickey's nod, the elf dropped the longbow off his shoulder and began scrambling up the tree. Mickey just went on reading. If Kelsey could handle it, then fine, that would mean less work for the leprechaun. And if not, if Gary was too far gone to be rescued, then Kelsey certainly couldn't blame Mickey for the failure, and Mickey would at least be able to get the elf to give him more time in his hunt for another suitable man. Either way, it didn't bother the leprechaun - very little ever truly bothered any leprechaun. It was a sunny warm day, with good smells, good sights, and good reading. What else could a leprechaun ask for?
He settled back against the tree and found his spot on the page, but before he could begin reading again, a sneaker plopped down upon his head and bounced to the ground next to him.
"Hey!" he cried, looking up. "What are ye about, then?" A second sneaker came bouncing down, straight at Mickey, but he quickly pointed a finger and uttered a single word and the shoe stopped in midair a foot above his head, and hung there motionless.
There came the sound of scuffling up above, a complaint, which Mickey recognized as Gary's voice - the scrapper was still alive, at least - -and suddenly Leshiye's singing sounded not so happy. Nymphs held little power over the Tylwyth Teg, the leprechaun knew, for the elven folk were not taken by enchantments and illusions as easily as were humans. Mickey nodded and shook his head helplessly, in sympathy with the nymph - it was that same resistance that had allowed Kelsey to catch Mickey and start this whole adventure in the first place.
A moment later, Gary came over the lip of the leafy hollow, followed closely by Kelsey. Gary cast a mournful look at what he was leaving behind, but the pointy sword tip at his back overruled Leshiye's pull on him. He moved slowly, picking his way down the tree, and kept looking back over his shoulder. Kelsey, obviously agitated and knowing that he had to get Gary as far away from the nymph as quickly as possible, prodded him along none too gently each time.
Leshiye came out behind them then, singing still.
"Get back in your den!" Kelsey yelled at her. He spun about, his gleaming sword up high and ready.
Leshiye, naked and vulnerable, stubbornly held her ground.
"Don't hit her!" Gary snapped at Kelsey. "Don't you dare!"
Kelsey turned and calmly slipped his foot across Gary's. A subtle twist sent Gary tumbling from the branch, the last ten feet to the ground. Without giving the human another thought, the elf spun back on Leshiye and warned again, "Get back in your den!"
Leshiye laughed at him. She knew, and Kelsey knew, that the elf's threat was a hollow one. No member of Tylwyth Teg would ever strike down a creature of Tir na n'Og, and Leshiye the wood nymph was as much a part of the forest as any tree or any animal.
Kelsey slipped his sword back in its gem-studded scabbard, scowled once more at the nymph, just for good measure, then skipped down the tree so lightly and easily that Gary, recovering down below, blinked in amazement.
Almost immediately, Leshiye's singing started up again.
"Be quiet!" Kelsey yelled up at her. "And you," he growled at Gary, "straighten your clothes and come along!"
Gary looked at Mickey, who nodded that he should obey. He picked up one shoe, then bumped his head on the other, noticing it for the first time. It remained hanging in the air where Mickey had magically held it. Gary expected to find some invisible wire supporting it, but it came freely into his hand when he tentatively grasped it.
"How?" Gary started to ask, but he took Mickey's sly wink as the only explanation he would ever get.
"Hurry along!" Kelsey demanded.
"Who the hell is he?" Gary asked Mickey. Kelsey swung about immediately and stormed over, his clear eyes shining fiercely, and his shoulder-length hair, more golden than the eyes even, glistening brightly in the sunlight. Kelsey was fully a foot shorter than Gary, and a hundred pounds lighter, but he seemed to tower over the young man now, enlarged by confidence and open anger.
"There I go again," Mickey said, slapping himself off the side of the head. "Forgetting me manners. Gary, lad, meet Kelsey..."
Kelsey showed Mickey a look that bordered on violence.
"Kelsenellenelvial Gil-Ravadry," Mickey quickly corrected. "An elf-lord of the Tylwyth Teg."
"Kelsen...," Gary stuttered, hardly able to echo the strange name.
Mickey saw the opening for a good taunt at his captor. "Call him Kelsey, lad," the leprechaun said with obvious enjoyment. "Everyone does."
"Sounds good to me," Gary said pointedly, realizing the elf's renewed glare. At that moment, anything that bothered the elf - the elf who had interrupted Gary's pleasure - would have sounded good to Gary. "Who invited you up the tree, Kelsey?" Gary asked evenly.
He realized at once that he was pushing his luck.
Kelsey said not a word; his hand didn't even go to the hilt of his exquisite sword. But the look he gave Gary silenced the young man as completely as that sword ever could.
Kelsey let the stare linger a bit longer, then turned about sharply and strode away.
"He's a good enough sort," Mickey explained to Gary. "Ye can get a bit o' fun outa that one, but be knowing, lad, that he saved your life."
Gary shot an incredulous look the leprechaun's way.
"She'd not ever have let ye go," Mickey went on. "Ye'd have died up there - a pleasing way to go, I'm not for arguing."
Gary did not seem convinced.
"Ye'd have been a goner," Mickey went on. "In the likes of Leshiye's clutches, ye'd have forgotten to eat or drink. Might that ye'd have forgotten to breathe, lad! Yer mind would've been set to one task only, until yer body died for the effort."
Gary slipped his sneaker on his foot and quickly tied it. "I can take care of myself," he declared.
"So have sayed a hundred men in that nymph's embrace," Mickey replied. "So have sayed a hundred dead men." The leprechaun chuckled and moved off after the elf, pulling outThe Hobbit as he walked.
Gary stood for a while shaking his head and considering whether or not he should go back up the tree. Just to make things more difficult for him, Leshiye appeared again over the edge of the hollow, smiling coyly. But the nymph looked out towards Kelsey, not so far away and with his longbow in hand, and she did not call out to the human this time.
Gary saw Kelsey, too, and he figured that if he started up the tree, the elf would surely put an arrow into his wrist, or perhaps somewhere else, somewhere more vital. "Time to go," he prudently told himself, and, casting a quick glance Kelsey's way, he zipped up his shorts. He gave more than one lamenting glance back at the tree as he wandered away, back at Leshiye in her translucent gown reclining comfortably on the branch beside the hollow.
Even Kelsey didn't blame him.
The elf set a swift pace through the forest, following no trail at all as far as Gary could discern. But Kelsey seemed to know where he was going, and Gary thought the better of questioning him. Mickey proved to be little comfort on the journey. The leprechaun skipped along, his footsteps impossibly light, with his face buried inThe Hobbit, laughing every now and then or muttering a "begorra." Gary was glad that the leprechaun was enjoying the book. Even though Mickey, by the leprechaun's own admission, had kidnapped him, Gary found that he liked the little guy.
Another laugh from Mickey sent Gary over to him. He peeked over the leprechaun's shoulder (not a difficult thing to do), trying to see what Chapter Mickey was on.
"What?" Gary babbled when he saw the open book. What had once been ordinary typeset was now a flowing script, in a language totally unrecognizable to Gary. Great sweeping lines had replaced the block letters, forming runes that did not resemble any alphabet Gary had ever seen. "What did you do to it?" he demanded.
Mickey looked up, his gray eyes turned up happily at their edges. "Do to what?" he asked innocently.
"My book," Gary protested, reaching down to take back the copy. He flipped through the pages, each showing the same unintelligible script. "What did you do to my book?"
"I made it readable," Mickey explained.
"It was readable."
"For yerself," replied Mickey, yanking the book back. "But ye can read it anytime - who's knowing how long I've got with it? So I made it readable for meself, and quit yer fretting. Ye'll get it back when I'm done."
"Forget the book," said a voice up ahead. The two looked to see Kelsey, stern-faced as usual, standing by a fat elm. "The book does not matter," the elf went on, talking to Gary. "You have more important concerns than casual reading." Kelsey cast Mickey a suspicious glance. "Have you informed him of the quest?"
"I been meaning to," Mickey replied. "Truly I have. But I'm wanting to break the lad in slowly, let him get used to things one at a time."
"We have not the time for that," said Kelsey. "The arrangements have already been made in Dilnamarra. We will soon be there to collect the artifacts, and then the quest begins in full."
"Very well, then," Mickey conceded, closingThe Hobbit and dropping it into an impossibly deep pocket in his gray jacket. "Lead on and I'll tell the lad as we go."
"We will break now," Kelsey replied. "You will tell him before we go."
Mickey and Kelsey eyed each other suspiciously for a few moments. The leprechaun knew that Kelsey had only ordered a break in the march so that he could better monitor the story that Mickey laid out to Gary. "Suren Tylwyth Teg's a trusting bunch," Mickey muttered quietly, but Kelsey's smile showed that he had heard clearly enough.
"I telled ye that ye were bringed here to serve an elf," Mickey began to Gary. "And so ye've met the elf, Kelsenel..." He stumbled over the long name, looked at Kelsey in frustration, and said, "Kelsey," gaining a measure of satisfaction in the insulted elf's returned scowl.
"Kelsey catched me to catch yerself - that, too, ye know," Mickey continued. "He's got himself a life-quest - the Tylwyth Teg take that sort o' stuff seriously, ye must understand - and he's needing a human of the right size to see it through."
Gary looked over at Kelsey, standing impassive and proud, and truly felt used. He wanted to shout out against the treatment, but he reminded himself, somewhat unconvincingly, that it was only a dream, after all.
"Kelsey's to reforge the spear of Cedric Donigarten," Mickey explained. "No easy task, that."
"Shouldn't you have caught a blacksmith?" Gary asked sarcastically.
"Oh, ye're not here to forge...," Mickey started to explain.
"The blacksmith will be next," Kelsey interrupted, aiming his words at Mickey. They had some effect, Gary saw, for the leprechaun stuttered over his next few words.
"Ye're the holder," Mickey managed to say at last. "The spear must be in the hands of a human - one in the armor of Cedric Donigarten, which is why ye were measured - when it's melted back together."
Gary didn't see the point of all this. "Who is Cedric Donigarten?" he asked. "And why can't he just wear his own armor?"
"Who is Cedric Donigarten?" Kelsey echoed in disbelief. "Where did you get this one, leprechaun?" he growled at Mickey.
"Ye said ye needed a man that'd fit," Mickey snapped back. "Ye did not say anything more for requirements." He looked back to Gary, thinking he had properly put Kelsey in his place. "Sir Cedric was the greatest King of Faerie," he began reverently. "He brought all the goodly folks together for the goblin wars - wars the goblins would suren have won if not for Cedric. A human, too, if ye can imagine that! All the goodly folks of all the lands - sprites, elfs, men, and dwarfs - speak the legend of Cedric Donigarten, and speak it with respect and admiring, to their children. Suren 'tis a shame that men don't live longer lives."
"Some men," Kelsey corrected.
"Aye," Mickey agreed with a chuckle, but his voice was reverent again as he continued. "Cedric's been dead three hundred years now, killed by a dragon in the last battle o' the goblin wars. And now Kelsey's to honor the dead with his life-quest, by reforging the mighty spear broken in that last battle."
Gary nodded. "Fine, then," he agreed. "Take me to the armor, and to the smithy, and let's go honor the dead."
"Fine it is!" laughed Mickey. He looked to Kelsey and cried, "Lead on!" hoping his enthusiasm would satisfy the elf and relieve him of the unpleasant task of finishing the story.
Kelsey crossed his slender arms over his chest and stood his ground. "Tell him of the smithy," the elf commanded.
"Ah, yes," said Mickey, pretending that he overlooked that minor point. "The smithy. We'll be needing a dwarf for that. 'Greatest smithy in all the land,' commands the spear's legend, and the greatest smithy in all the land's ever been one o' the bearded folk."
Gary didn't appear the least bothered, so Mickey clapped his hands and started towards Kelsey again.
"Explain the problem," the elf said sternly. Mickey stopped abruptly and turned back to Gary.
"Ye see, lad," he said. "Elfs and dwarfs don't get on so well - not that dwarfs get on well with anyone. We'll have to catch the smithy we're needing."
"Catch?" Gary asked suspiciously.
"Steal," Mickey explained.
Gary nodded, then shook his head, then nearly laughed aloud, silently praising himself for a weird and wonderful imagination.
"Are ye contented?" Mickey asked Kelsey.
"Tell him of the forge," the elf replied.
Mickey sighed and spun back on Gary. This time the leprechaun's face was obviously grave. "The spear's a special one," Mickey explained. "No bellows could get a fire hot enough, even could we get two mountain trolls to pump it! So we're needing a bit of an unusual forge, so declared the legends." He looked at Kelsey and frowned. "I'm growing tired of that damned legend," he said.
"Tell him," Kelsey demanded sternly.
Mickey paused as if he couldn't get the explanation past his lips.
"An unusual forge," Gary prompted after a long silence. "I telled ye before that ye'll be playing with dragons," Mickey blurted.
Gary rocked back on his heels and spent a long moment of thought. "Let me get this straight," he said, wanting to play all of Mickey's meandering words in a straight line. "You mean that I have to hold some dead King's spear while a dragon breathes fire on it and some captured dwarven smithy puts it back together?"
"There!" Mickey cried triumphantly. "The lad's got it! On we go, Kelsey." Mickey started along again but stopped, seeing that Kelsey hadn't moved and sensing that Gary wasn't following.
"What now, lad?" asked the exasperated leprechaun. Gary paid him no heed. He slapped himself softly on the cheek several times and pinched his arm once or twice. "Well, if this is a dream," he said to no one in particular, "then it's time to wake up."
Kelsey shook his head, not pleased, then glowered at Mickey. "Where did you get this one?" he demanded.
Mickey shrugged. "I telled me friends to bring one that'd fit the armor, just as ye telled me," he replied. "Are ye getting particular?"
Kelsey regarded Gary for a while. He was big and well muscled - bigger than any of the people in Dilnamarra and probably as big as Cedric Donigarten himself. Mickey had assured him that Gary would fit the armor and Kelsey didn't doubt it. And Mickey was right with the remark about "getting particular." The legends said nothing of the subject's demeanor, just that he be human and wearing the armor. Kelsey walked over to Gary.
"Come along," the elf ordered to both of them. "You are not dreaming, and we want you here as little as you apparently wish to be here. Complete the task and you shall return to your own place."
"And suppose that I refuse to go along?" Gary dared to ask, not appreciating the elf's superior tone.
"Uh-oh," Mickey muttered, his grave tone making Gary wonder again if he had overstepped the bounds.
Kelsey's golden eyes narrowed and his lips turned up in a perfectly wicked grin. "Then I will declare you an outlaw," the elf said evenly. "For breaking the rules of capture. And a coward, deserving a brand." He paused for a moment so that Gary could get the full effect. "Then I shall kill you."
Gary's eyes popped wide and he looked to Mickey.
"I telled ye the Tylwyth Teg take their quests seriously," was all the comfort the leprechaun could offer.
"Do we go on?" Kelsey asked, putting a hand on the hilt of his fine sword.
Gary did not doubt the elf's grim promise for a minute. "Lead on, good elf," he said. "To Dilnamarra."
Kelsey nodded and turned away.
"Good that that's settled," Mickey said to the elf as he strode past. "Ye've got yer man now. I'll be taking me leave."
Kelsey's sword came out in the blink of an eye. "No, you will not," the elf replied. "He is your responsibility and you will see this through for the time being."
Gary didn't appreciate the derisive way Kelsey had said "he," but he was glad that the leprechaun would apparently be sticking around for a bit longer. The thought of dealing with Kelsey alone, without Mickey to offer subtle advice and deflecting chatter, unnerved Gary more than a little.
"I caught you, Mickey McMickey," Kelsey declared. "And only I can release you."
"Ye made the terms and I've met them," Mickey argued.
"If you leave, I will go to all lengths to catch you again," Kelsey promised. "The next time - and I will indeed catch you again - I will have your pot of gold, and your word-twisting tongue for good measure."
"The Tylwyth Teg take their quests seriously," Gary snorted from behind.
"That they do," agreed Mickey. "Then lead on, me good elf, to Dilnamarra, though I'm sure to be ducking a hundred pairs of greedy hands in the human keep!"
Kelsey started away and Mickey took outThe Hobbit again.
"Worried about the dragon?" Gary asked, coming up to walk beside the diminutive sprite.
"Forget the dragon," Mickey replied. "Ye ever met a dwarf, lad? Mighten be more trouble than any old wyrm, and with breath nearen as bad!
"But make the best of it, I always say," Mickey went on. "I've got me a good book for the road, if the company's a bit lacking."
Gary was too amused to take offense.
"I do not tolerate failure!" Ceridwen snarled. "You were given a task, and promised payment for that task, yet the stranger walks free."
The nymph giggled, embarrassed. Leshiye did not fear Ceridwen, not here in Tir na n'Og, the source of the nymph's power but a foreign place to the sorceress.
Ceridwen stopped talking and fixed an evil stare on Leshiye. Her icy-blue eyes narrowed and widened alternately, the only clue that she was calling upon her magical energies.
Dark clouds rolled in suddenly, the wind came howling to life.
Leshiye had a few tricks of her own. She let the sorceress fall deeper into her spellcasting, waited for Ceridwen's eyes to close altogether. Then Leshiye looked into her oak tree, followed its lead into the ground and along its long and deep roots. Other nearby oaks reached out their roots in welcome and the nymph easily glided through the plant door out of harm's way.
Ceridwen loosed her storm's fury anyway; several bolts of lightning belted the giant oak in rapid succession. But, furious though they were, they barely scarred the ancient and huge oak, still vital and with the strength of the earth coursing through its great limbs. Ceridwen's satisfied smile evaporated a moment later when she heard Leshiye's giggle from beyond the small field.
The witch did not send her storm in pursuit, realizing that she was overmatched and out of her place in Tir na n'Og. "You would be wise to ever remain in this wood," she warned the nymph, but Leshiye hardly cared for the threat; where else would she ever be?
The sorceress huffed and threw her black cloak high over her shoulder. As it descended, Ceridwen seemed to melt away beneath it, shrinking as the cloak moved closer to the ground. Then garment and sorceress, blended as one and a large raven lifted off from where Ceridwen had stood.
She rose high over the enchanted wood, racing away towards Dilnamarra, scanning as she flew to see if she could discover the progress of the elf's party. Ceridwen wasn't overly disappointed by Leshiye's failure; she never really believed that stopping the life-quest of an elf-lord of Kelsenellenelvial Gil-Ravadry's high standing would be as easy as that.
But Ceridwen was a resourceful witch. She had other, if less subtle, plans set into motion, and even in light of her first failure, she would not have bet a copper coin on the success of Kelsey's quest.