Kelsey stood on a low hill, east of Dilnamarra Keep, watching the sun go down behind the square, squat tower that centered the simple village. The clouds beyond had turned orange and pink with the sunset, and all the mud of the town was lost in a rosy hue.
"You just do not understand," the elf said to Geno, who sat on a stone with his arms crossed over his sturdy chest, pointedly looking away from the beautiful scene.
Kelsey turned about to face the dwarf squarely. "Geldion holds Pwyll solely responsible for the missing armor. Connacht has found its excuse to hang the troublesome Baron."
"Why would I care, you dumb elf?" Geno snorted, and he spat on the ground. "I never did any business with Pwyll, or with any in Dilnamarra. I've got no customers there, so I plan to go and watch and enjoy the hanging!"
Kelsey's golden eyes narrowed, but he bit back his angry retort, knowing that gruff Geno was simply baiting him for a fight. "If Baron Pwyll is hung," the elf explained, "then Geldion will appoint an acting Baron, a man, no doubt, who will nod his head stupidly at every edict passed on from Connacht."
"Aren't all humans stupid?" Geo asked in all seriousness.
"Not as stupid as you are acting."
Geno's gaze dropped to the many hammers on his belt. He wondered how many he could put spinning into the air before Kelsey closed on him.
"Stupid, indeed, if you do not understand the implications of losing an ally such as Pwyll," Kelsey added, reading Geno's expression and promptly qualifying the statement. Kelsey needed no fights with Geno, not now with so much apparently at stake. "Only a few of Faerie's human landowners remain independent of Connacht," Kelsey explained. "Duncan Drochit and Badenoch of Braemar are two, but they look to Pwyll for support. King Kinne-more dearly desires to bring Dilnamarra into his fold, craves an outpost so near to Tir na n'Og, that he might keep an eye on the Tylwyth Teg."
"Sounds like an elfish problem to me," Geno remarked.
"Not so," Kelsey quickly replied. "If Pwyll is hung and Dilnamarra taken, then Kinnemore can look east, to Braemar and Drochit, and farther east, to the other two goodly races who have ever been a thorn in the outlaw King's side."
Geno snorted derisively. "That weaselly King would never have the belly for a fight in Dvergamal," the dwarf reasoned, waving his hands as if to brush the absurd notion away.
"But Prince Geldion would," Kelsey said gravely. "And if not Geldion, then certainly the witch Ceridwen, whose hand moves the lips and limbs of Kinnemore." Geno stopped his waving hand, and his smug and gap-toothed smile melted away.
"Even if war did not come to the dwarfs and the gnomes, the trade would surely suffer," Kelsey went on, casually turning back to the sunset as though his proclamations were foregone conclusions. "Perhaps, after Pwyll is hung, you will get the opportunity to clear up your pile of overdue orders, good smithy."
Geno chewed on his lower lip for a while, but had no practical response. He could bluster that he didn't care for the fate of Faerie's bothersome humans, but the men were by far the most populous of the goodly races, far outnumbering the Tylwyth Teg elfs of Tir na n'Og, the Buldrefolk dwarfs of Dvergamal, and the gnomes of Gondabuggan combined. And while the populations of the elfs, dwarfs, and gnomes had held steady for centuries untold, the humans seemed to breed like bunnies in an unhunted meadow, with new villages dotting the countryside every year - new villages needing metal tools, armor, and weapons.
"You have an idea of where to find the armor?" Geno stated as much as asked.
"I have an idea of where to start looking," Kelsey corrected. "Are you coming with me, or will you return to the mountains?"
"Damned elf," the trapped Geno muttered under his breath, and Kelsey smiled, taking the grumbling to mean that he had hooked the tough dwarf into his quest once again. Kelsey set a course straight north, and when towering trees came into view a short while la ter, it wasn't hard for Geno to figure out where the elf was heading. "No, no," Geno stuttered, setting his boots firmly in the turf, shaking his head and his hands as he regarded the majestic forest. "If you plan to walk into Tir na n'Og, elf, you walk alone."
"I need your help," Kelsey reminded him. "As do your people."
"But why the forest?" Geno asked gruffly, if a bit plaintively. "If the witch took the armor, then it would more likely be headed for Ynis Gwydrin, the other way."
Kelsey's eyes narrowed as he listened, getting the distinct impression that Geno would prefer a trip to Ynis Gwydrin, Ceridwen's dread island, over a walk through the elven forest.
"If Kinnemore took the armor," Geno went on, ignoring the look, "then it would be headed for Connacht, again the other way. Who would be stupid enough to steal something so important to the Tylwyth Teg, then drop it in Tir na n'Og, right under their flower-sniffing noses?"
"Who indeed?" Kelsey mused, and his wry smile sent a myriad of questions through Geno's mind.
"Did you take the damned stuff?" Geno balked, and it seemed to Kelsey as though the dwarf was ready to start heaving a line of warhammers.
Kelsey shook his head, his mane of golden hair bouncing wildly about his shoulders. "Not I," he explained. "Whatever my reasons, I would never act so rashly when so much is at stake."
Geno mulled over the words for a few moments, knowing that Kelsey had put a clue or two in his answer.
"McMickey!" the dwarf cried suddenly, and Kelsey's nod confirmed the guess. "But what would the leprechaun want with armor that is five times his size? What would he want with a spear he could hardly lift off the ground?"
"Those are exactly the questions I plan to ask him, once we find him," Kelsey paused, looking from the now not-so-distant wood to Geno. "In Tir na n'Og," Kelsey finished, and he started off again, motioning for the dwarf to follow.
"Damned sprite," Geno bitched. "I'll pay that one back in hammers for putting me through this."
"Perhaps you will find, after walking the smooth paths of the wondrous forest, that you owe the leprechaun some thanks, Geno Hammerthrower," Kelsey remarked rather sharply. He really didn't expect a dwarf to understand or appreciate the elven wood, but he was beginning to find Geno's grumbling about the place more than a little annoying. "Few of the Buldrefolk have ever seen the wood, and none in centuries. Perhaps your fear of it ..."
"Shut your mouth and walk on fast," Geno growled.
Kelsey said no more, realizing that advice to be the best he would get out of the surly dwarf.
The sheer vibrancy of Tir na n'Og's primal colors sent Kelsey's spirit soaring, and sent Geno's eyes spinning, as they made their way along the forest paths. It was early summer, and Tir na n'Og was alive, bristling with the sounds of chattering birds and humming bees, the thumping of a rabbit, the splash of a beaver, and the continuing song of a dozen dancing brooks. To Kelsey, to all the Tylwyth Teg, this was home, this was Faerie at its most precious, its most natural and correct state. But to Geno, who lived his life in rocky caves in the rugged Dvergamal range, Tir na n'Og seemed foreign and unwelcoming. In his dwarfish homeland, Geno's ears were filled with the rhythmic sound of hammers ringing on heated metal, and with the unending roar of the waterfalls at the Firth of Buldre. Tir na n'Og's more subtle, but many times more varied, noises kept the dwarf off-balance and on his guard, his gnarly fingers clutching tightly to the handle of a hammer and his blue eyes darting to and fro, searching the impossible tangles to try to discern what creatures might be about.
Birds squawked in the boughs above them, dogging their every step with telltale shrieks.
"They are announcing our presence to my people," Kelsey explained to the nervous dwarf. "The birds are Tir na n'Og's sentries."
The elf had thought that the explanation would put Geno more at ease, but, if anything, the dwarf seemed even more agitated. Every few steps, he would skid to a stop, hop around, looking up, and yell, "Shut your beak!" which only agitated the birds even more. Kelsey was glad that the dwarf was behind him, and could not see his smile, as the chatter multiplied in their wake.
Wider indeed did the elf's smile grow when they came through a small lea, lined by huge pines, and the birdsong reached a new crescendo.
"I told you to shut your beaks!" unnerved Geno roared, but then the dwarf saw through the illusion, saw that the birds were not really birds at all, but were Tylwyth Teg, scores of them, grim-faced and with bows drawn as they watched from the branches.
"Oh," Geno offered, and he said not another word for the next several hours.
After they passed the meadow, Kelsey stopped many times and whistled up trees, waiting for the whistling reply, then starting off once more, often in a different direction. Geno figured that the elf was getting information about the leprechaun in some strange code, but he didn't ask about it, just followed in Kelsey's wake and hoped that the whole trip through the miserable forest would soon be at its end.
It was late afternoon when Kelsey crouched in a bush and motioned for Geno to come up beside him. The elf pointed across a small clearing to a huge tree, and to the leprechaun resting easily against the trunk, twirling a jeweled dagger atop one finger. His hair and beard were brown, fast going to gray, his smiling eyes shining the color of steel in the afternoon sun. His overcoat, too, was gray, and his breeches green. He absently kept the dagger spinning, its tip on the tip of his finger, while he filled a long-stemmed pipe with his other hand and popped it into his mouth. And all the while, the hard heels of Mickey's shiny black, curly-toed shoes tap-tapped a frolicking rhythm on a thick root of the gigantic oak.
Using hand signals and facial gestures, Kelsey communicated to Geno that he should wait for the elf to get into position, then charge straight ahead at Mickey. Knowing how tricky fleeing leprechauns could be, and wanting nothing more than to get out of the forest, Geno readily agreed, though he was more than a little unsettled when Kelsey slipped away, fast disappearing into the brush, leaving him alone.
Just a moment later, though it seemed an interminable period to Geno, the elf poked a hand up from the tangle to the side and back of Mickey. "Damned sprite!" Geno roared again, bursting from the brush, a hammer held high so that he could throw it at the ground in front of the leprechaun's feet if Mickey took flight. "Ah, there ye are, me friend dwarf," Mickey said easily, not even upset or surprised enough to drop the spinning dagger off his finger. "Suren it took ye long enough. And yerself, too, Kelsey," Mickey said without turning around, just an instant before Kelsey's hand grabbed him by the collar.
Kelsey and Geno exchanged incredulous looks and Kelsey let go, though Geno kept his hammer ready. The elf looked closer at the sprite, wondering if he was merely an illusion, fearing that the real Mickey McMickey was standing on the edge of the clearing, or up in the oak, laughing at them as they stood there confused. None in all of Faerie, not even Robert or Ceridwen, could see through an illusion as well as the Tylwyth Teg, though, and as far as Kelsey could tell, this was indeed Mickey sitting before him.
"You expected us?" Kelsey asked, unsure of himself.
"I called ye, didn't I?" Mickey replied with a huff.
"Then it was you who took the armor and spear," Geno growled.
Mickey glanced over one shoulder, his eyes pointing the way to the leafcovered items, sitting neatly against a tree at the clearing's edge. Kelsey grabbed the leprechaun by the collar again and hoisted him to his feet, the jeweled dagger falling to the ground. "Do you realize what you have done?" the elf demanded.
"I have brought ye both out here, as I needed," Mickey replied easily. "Geldion has come to Dilnamarra," Kelsey growled, roughly letting go of the sprite. "Connacht holds Baron Pwyll responsible for the theft, and thus, he will be hung at noontime tomorrow. You should look farther down the corridors behind the doors you open before you act."
"And yerself should look east, Kelsenellenelvial Gil-Ravadry!" Mickey roared back, and his uncharacteristic tone and use of Kelsey's formal name (which Mickey had never seemed able to properly pronounce before) gave Kelsey pause. He watched curiously as Mickey retrieved the dagger, holding it up for both Kelsey and Geno to see, and wearing an expression which showed that the dagger should explain everything.
To both the others, the weapon seemed out of place in the leprechaun's hand, first because leprechauns rarely carried weapons - and on the few occasions they might, it was usually a slingshot or shillelagh - and second because the man-sized weapon seemed so unwieldy, practically a short sword, to the diminutive sprite.
"Look east, Kelsenellenenen ... Kelsey," Mickey said again, "to where Robert may have already taken wing."
"The dragon was banished to his castle for a hundred years," Kelsey started to argue, but all the while he stared at the dagger, and began to understand. "Where did you get that?" "Gary Leger," Mickey explained.
"Stonebubbles," Geno spat, the very worst of dwarfish curses.
"Not the lad's fault," Mickey explained. "He taked it from the tower, not the treasure room, and taked it for fighting, not for stealin'."
"But the theft releases Robert from his banishment," Kelsey reasoned. "And with Ceridwen banished and posing no deterrent to Robert ..." "The wyrm might well be already out and flying," Mickey finished. "And so did I bring ye all together, that we might put the wyrm back in his hole." All the while, Mickey was thinking not of Robert, but of his precious pot of gold, bartered to the dragon in exchange for his life before the friends had ever entered Robert's castle. Mickey didn't think it wise to tell the others that little detail, though, preferring to take the altruistic route this time, knowing that it would more likely appeal to the honorable Kelsey.
"If the dragon has discovered the missing dagger, then he will not likely be easy to put back in his hole," Kelsey reasoned, mimicking Mickey's words derisively.
"Oh, ye should better learn the terms of banishment before ye go insulting me," Mickey replied. "If we get the dagger back to the Giant's Thumb afore the change o' the season, then Robert'll be obliged to return." It was a plausible lie, and one that Mickey hoped would get him near to his pot of gold once more.
Kelsey's fair face screwed up incredulously. He had lived for centuries among the Tylwyth Teg, his people, among the most knowledgeable of races where ancient codes were concerned, and he had never heard of such a rule.
" 'Tis true," Mickey went on, puffing on the pipe to hide his smirk. Leprechauns were the best liars in all the world, but the Tylwyth Teg were the best at seeing through those lies. "I have never heard of this rule," Kelsey answered.
"If Robert hasn't found the lost dagger and we get it back, then no harm's done," Mickey replied. "And if he has found it, even if he's taken wing, then he'll be bound to return."
"And if you are wrong?"
Mickey shrugged. "Ye got a better plan? Ye meaning to go off and fight the wyrm?"
"Stonebubbles," Geno spat again.
Kelsey didn't immediately answer, caught in Mickey's web. He certainly did not wish to fight Robert, if that could in any way be avoided. "And so I bringed ye together," Mickey went on. "It's our own fault that Robert's about, and our own job to put him back where he rightly belongs."
"You could have just asked," Geno grumbled, and he, too, seemed subdued, caught in Mickey's sticky web.
"I needed to get ye all together," Mickey argued. "And I didn't even know where yerself had gotten off to. I figured to let Pwyll do me hunting for me, and it seems like he catched ye good." Geno grumbled and lowered his eyes, preferring to keep his memories of the wild fight in Braemar's Snoozing Sprite tavern private.
"At what cost?" Kelsey demanded. "Your games have put Baron Pwyll in jeopardy."
Mickey chewed on the end of his long-stemmed pipe for a few moments, thinking it through. "Then we'll just have to take the good and fat Baron along with us," he decided, his big-toothed and pearly smile beaming once more.
Mickey's obvious confidence set Kelsey back on his heels and ended that debate - for the time. "And what of the armor?" Kelsey demanded, determined to find some problem with Mickey's simple reasoning.
"Oh, I'll be filling it soon enough," the leprechaun replied, his gray eyes twinkling mischievously. "Don't ye worry."