“Then you shall wait all your life,” the ragpicker warned. “So be it,” Gar said. “It will be worth the wait.”
“Worth it how? Passing your time flitting about the galaxy freeing nations of thankless people? Finishing alone in your old age? Will this make the wait worthwhile?”
“If a woman comes with a key, she will be worth it. If not?” Gar shrugged. “I may not have a gamesome spirit, but I can find many tasks that will amuse me. My life will not be wasted and at its end, I doubt not I will thank you.”
“So he speaks to the deepest part of himself,” the ragpicker said to the elves with deep disappointment. “Worse, he thinks he means it.” He turned back to Gar, shaking his head. “He will not rise to the bait.”
“What? To rant and rave at a figment of my own dreammind?” Gar gave him a thin smile. “That would be a waste of breath indeed.”
“It is not that purpose to which I would make you rise,” said the ragpicker, but shook his head at the elves. “Let me go, mindrakers. I can be of no use here.”
“As you wish it.” The elf held her hand up flat, moved it in a circle, and the ragpicker disappeared like steaming breath wiped from a cold window pane.
“We can trust him,” the elf said to the fairy. Then her tone took on a note of regret as she added, “Though he cannot trust himself.”
“I trust myself to keep my temper no matter what the temptation,” Gar said with a smile.
“Aye, more’s the pity,” a fairy answered, “but can you aim yourself to do what is best for you?”
“Best for me?” Gar asked with another sardonic smile. “Why bother? All my worth comes from making the world better for other people.”
“Do you deserve nothing for yourself?”
Gar frowned, thinking it over, then said, “It’s not a question of deserving. Making the world a better place makes my life worth living, that’s all.”
“Should you not also make it a better place for yourself?”
“What would such self-indulgence accomplish?”
“Perhaps a little more happiness.”
“Happiness?” Gar smiled. “Yes, I remember that from my childhood.” He shrugged. “It will come if it will come.”
“Do you not think you merit it?”
Again, Gar shrugged. “If I do, it will find me some day.” The fairy stared at him, eyes wide and tragic, then turned to the elves. “Can we mend him in that?”
“No,” said an elf, “nor can his own kind, not even a woman. He can only mend himself.”
“And he will not bother.” The fairy turned back to Gar, “Nonetheless, we can wish you well in your peace-seeking, wanderer, and will give you whatever aid we can.”
“Aye,” said an elf. “If ever you are in danger, flee to any the Keepers of the Mounds and they will give you sanctuary such that no mortal will dare violate.”
“I thank you.” Gar wondered what the Keepers of the Mounds were but thought it best not to ask; they would probably be self-evident.
“You are welcome, so long as your enemy is our enemy.” Gar frowned. “But I am of the New People! Are they not your enemies?”
“No,” said a fairy, “they are only a hazard of which we must be wary.”
“It is their warring that hurts us, for when many clansfolk go blasting leaden balls from rifles made of Cold Iron, elves and fairies alike are injured or slain.”
“Even the concussion of their firearms can maim us,” another fairy said.
Gar looked at the gossamer-winged, fine-boned body and found he could believe it easily. “So, then, we do have a common enemy—the feuds.”
“Even so,” the fairy agreed. “Labor to end them, mortal, and you shall have the thanks of all the Old People! Farewell.” Wing beats exploded, and the fairies were gone so quickly that if Gar had blinked, he would have thought they had simply disappeared.
“Farewell indeed,” an elf seconded, “and be sure that so long as you work for peace, you shall have the aid of the Wee Folk. Good fortune attend you.”
“Good fortune,” the elves chorused. Then each stepped behind a leaf or tree or sank down into underbrush, and were gone from view as though they had never been.
Gar stared, then opened his mind cautiously and felt the presence of a score of other minds so alien he could scarcely distinguish any of their thoughts. “Au revoir,” he said softly, then turned to waken Kerlew, thinking all the while that he would have to work at deciphering the thoughts of the Old Folk until it could become automatic.
He shook the lad’s shoulder and Kerlew groaned, but it was only the sort of groan issuing from anyone who sleeps deeply and is reluctant to waken. “Rise, bold woodsman,” Gar said softly, “and hunt the sun, or it will be up and away before you can catch it.”
The boy rolled over to squint up at Gar, frowning. “What nonsense is this? Who could hunt the sun—and why should he? It will come to us all sooner or later.”
“It will indeed,” Gar agreed, “and you’ll want to be awake to see it. Come now, rise and take some breakfast, for we’ve a long day’s journey ahead.”
Kerlew levered himself up, then put a hand to his head, puzzled. “I seem to have slept well…” He looked up at Gar. “If sunrise is nearly upon us, then you must have watched all night by yourself! Why did you not wake me for my turn?”
“I was preoccupied.” Gar took a quick inventory of his body and said with surprise, “I’m not tired, though. I suppose I will be halfway through the morning. Then I’ll trouble you to keep watch while I nap.”
“Surely, but I would gladly have done so last…” Kerlew’s eyes widened as memory caught up with him. “The Wee Folk! We came upon them last night, and they felled me!”
“So they did,” Gar agreed, “though they assured me you would only sleep very deeply and were not hurt in any way.”
“No wonder you did not wake me.” Kerlew looked up at Gar anxiously. “Did they keep you talking all night?”
“I suppose they did,” Gar said with surprise, “though it seemed to be less than an hour.”
“That is their way.” Kerlew rose, dusting himself off. “They can make an instant seem to be a day, or a day pass in an instant. Come, let’s breakfast, and we can tell each other what we know of them while we walk.”
Over journey rations and a hot herbal brew, Kerlew explained that the clans called the elves the Wee Folk or the Old Ones. “Legend has it that they were on this world when our ancestors came from the stars,” he said with a sardonic smile, “but who could believe such an old wives’ tale?”
“Who indeed?” Gar reflected wryly that fairies and elves were quite real to the clansfolk, but space travel was a fantasy. “It was rather difficult to know to whom I was talking. I can accept that they all look alike to us, but I couldn’t even tell males from females.”
“None can,” Kerlew told him. “Indeed, no one is even certain that there are two sexes.”
“They aren’t that different from us, surely!” Gar couldn’t be certain, but the natives did look rather mammalian, though he hadn’t seen any mammaries. “How else would they reproduce?”
Kerlew spread his hands. “None knows. Some think they may lay eggs, others that they split in half so that each half grows into a new being.”
“Now that I would call a fairy tale.” Gar knew that fission only worked on the microscopic level.
Kerlew shrugged. “Others guess that elves are male and fairies female, but few place much faith in the notion. The elves are too much larger than the fairies.”
“Well, male or female, it matters not,” Gar said. “All that matters is that they’ve said they’ll help us, if we seek to bring peace to the clans.”
“That can never happen!” Kerlew exclaimed wide-eyed, then immediately corrected himself. “Though mayhap, with the help of the Old Ones…” His eyes filled with longing. “It would be pleasant to be able to go home again.”