The Fantasy MEGAPACK ® Read online

  “Cheapest thing I can give you is Duke’s Mixture, and it’ll cost you five cents, cash.”

  Regretfully Ellowan watched the nickel vanish over the counter; tobacco was indeed a luxury at the price. He picked up the small cloth bag, and the pasteboard folder the boy thrust at him. “What might this be?” he asked, holding up the folder.

  “Matches.” The boy grinned in fine superiority. “Where you been all your life? Okay, you do this…see? Course, if you don’t want ‘em—”

  “Thank’ee.” The elf pocketed the book of matches quickly and hurried toward the street, vastly pleased with his purchase. Such a great marvel as the matches alone surely was worth the price. He filled his clay pipe and struck one of them curiously, chuckling in delight as it flamed up. When he dropped the flame regretfully, he noticed that the tobacco, too, was imbued with magic, else surely it could never have been cured to such a mild and satisfying flavor. It scarcely bit his tongue.

  But there was no time to be loitering around admiring his new treasures. Without work there could be no food, and supper was still to be taken care of. Those aluminum and enamelware pans were still in his mind, reminding him that coppers might be hard to get. But then, Mrs. Franklin had mentioned stainless steel, and only a mighty wizard could prevent iron from rusting; perhaps her husband was a worker in enchantments, and the rest of the village might be served in honest copper and hammered pewter. He shook his shoulders in forced optimism and marched down the street toward the other houses, noting the prices marked in a store window as he passed. Eh, the woman was right; he’d have to charge more for his services to eat at those rates.

  * * * *

  The road was filled with the strange carriages driven by engines, and Ellowan stayed cautiously off the paving. But the stench from their exhausts and the dust they stirred up were still thick in his nostrils. The elf switched the bag from his left shoulder to his right and plodded on grimly, but there was no longer a tune on his lips, and the little bells refused to tinkle as he walked.

  The sun had set, and it was already growing darker, bringing the long slow day to a close. His last call would be at the house ahead, already showing lights burning, and it was still some distance off. Ellowan pulled his belt tighter and marched toward it, muttering in slow time to his steps.

  “Al-u-mi-num and en-am-el-ware and stain-less STEEL!” A row of green pans, red pots and ivory bowls ran before his eyes, and everywhere there was a glint of silvery skillets and dull white kettles. Even the handles used were no longer honest wood, but smelled faintly resinous.

  Not one proper kettle in the whole village had he found. The housewives came out and looked at him, answered his smile, and brought forth their work for him in an oddly hesitant manner, as if they were unused to giving out such jobs at the door. It spoke more of pity than of any desire to have their wares mended.

  “No, mistress, only copper. These new metals refuse my solder, and them I cannot mend.” Over and again he’d repeated the words until they were as wooden as his knocks had grown; and always, there was no copper. It was almost a kindness when they refused to answer his knock.

  He had been glad to quit the village and turn out on the road to the country, even though the houses were farther apart. Surely among the farming people, the older methods would still be in use. But the results were no different. They greeted him kindly and brought out their wares to him with less hesitancy than in the village—but the. utensils were enamelware and aluminum and stainless steel!

  Ellowan groped for his pipe and sank down on the ground to rest, noting that eight miles still lay between him and Northville. He measured out the tobacco carefully, and hesitated before using one of the new matches. Then, as he lit it, he watched the flame dully and tossed it listlessly aside. Even the tobacco tasted flat now, and the emptiness of his stomach refused to be fooled by the smoke, though it helped to take his mind away from his troubles. Eh, well, there was always that one last house to be seen, where fortune might smile on him long enough to furnish a supper. He shouldered the bag with a grunt and moved on.

  A large German shepherd came bounding out at the elf as he turned in the gate to the farmhouse. The dog’s bark was gruff and threatening, but Ellowan clucked softly and the animal quieted, walking beside him toward the house, its tail wagging slowly. The farmer watched the performance and grinned.

  “Prinz seems to like you,” he called out. “Tain’t everyone he takes to like that. What can I do for you, lad?” Then, as Ellowan drew nearer, he looked more sharply. “Sorry—my mistake. For a minute there, I thought you was a boy.”

  “I’m a tinker, sir. A coppersmith, that is.” The elf stroked the dog’s head and looked up at the farmer wistfully. “Have you copper pots or pans, or odds of any kind, to be mended? I do very good work on copper, sir, and I’ll be glad to work for only my supper.”

  The farmer opened the door and motioned him in. “Come on inside, and we’ll see. I don’t reckon we have, but the wife knows better.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Louisa, where are you? In the kitchen?”

  “In here, Henry.” The voice came from the kitchen, and Ellowan followed the man back, the dog nuzzling his hand companionably. The woman was washing the last few dishes and putting the supper away as they entered, and the sight of food awoke the hunger that the elf had temporarily suppressed.

  “This fellow says he’s good at fixin’ copper dishes, Louisa,” Henry told his wife. “You got anything like that for him?” He bent over her ear and spoke in an undertone, but Ellowan caught the words. “If you got anything copper, he looks like he needs it, Lou. Nice little midget, seems to be, and Prinz took quite a shine to him.”

  Louisa shook her head slowly. “I had a couple of old copper kettles, only I threw them away when we got the aluminum cooking set. But if you’re hungry, there’s plenty of food still left. Won’t you sit down while I fix it for you?”

  Ellowan looked eagerly at the remains of the supper, and his mouth watered hotly, but he managed a smile, and his voice was determined. “Thank’ee kindly, mistress, but I can’t. It’s one of the rules I must live by not to beg or take what I cannot earn. But I’ll be thanking you both for the thought, and wishing you a very good night.”

  They followed him to the door, and the dog trotted behind him until its master’s whistle called it back. Then the elf was alone on the road again, hunting a place to sleep. There was a haystack back off the road that would make a good bed, and he headed for that. Well, hay was hardly nourishing, but chewing on it was better than nothing.

  Ellowan was up with the sun again, brushing the dirt off his jerkin. As an experiment, he shook the runes out on the ground and studied them for a few minutes. “Eh, well,” he muttered, tossing them back in the bag, “they speak well, but it’s little faith I’d have in them for what is to come. It’s too easy to shake them the way I’d want them to be. But per chance there’ll be a berry or so in the woods yonder.”

  * * * *

  There were no berries, and the acorns were still green. Ellowan struck the highway again, drawing faint pleasure from the fact that few cars were on the road at that hour. He wondered again why their fumes, though unpleasant, bothered him as little as they did. His brothers, up in the grotto hidden in the Adirondacks, found even the smoke from the factories a deadening poison.

  The smell of a good wood fire, or the fumes from alcohol in the glass-blower’s lamp were pleasant to them. But with the coming of coal, a slow lethargy had crept over them, driving them back one by one into the hills to sleep. It had been bad enough when coal was burned in the hearths, but that Scotchman, Watts, had found that power could be drawn from steam, and the factories began spewing forth the murky fumes of acrid coal smoke. And the Little Folk had fled hopelessly from the poison, until Ellowan Coppersmith alone was left. In time, even he had joined his brothers up in the hills.

 
Now he had awakened again, without rhyme or reason, when the stench of the liquid called gasoline was added to that of coal. All along the highway were pumps that supplied it to the endless cars, and the taint of it in the air was omnipresent.

  “Eh, well,” he thought. “My brothers were ever filled with foolish pranks instead of honest work, while I found my pleasure in labor. Methinks the pranks weakened them against the poison, and the work gives strength; it was only after I hexed the factory owner that the sleep crept into my head, and sixscore years must surely pay the price of one such trick. Yet, when I first awakened, it’s thinking I was that there was some good purpose that drew me forth.”

  The sight of an orchard near the road caught his attention, and the elf searched carefully along the strip of grass outside the fence in the hope that an apple might have been blown outside. But only inside was there fruit, and to cross the fence would be stealing. He left the orchard reluctantly and started to turn in at the road leading to the farmhouse. Then he paused.

  After all, the farms were equipped exactly as the city now, and such faint luck as he’d had yesterday had been in the village. There was little sense in wasting his effort among the scattered houses of the country, in the unlikely chance that he might find copper. In the city, at least, there was little time wasted, and it was only by covering as many places as he could that he might hope to find work. Ellowan shrugged, and turned back on the highway; he’d save his time and energy until he reached Northville.

  It was nearly an hour later when he came on the boy, sitting beside the road and fussing over some machine. Ellowan stopped as he saw the scattered parts and the worried frown on the lad’s face. Little troubles seemed great to twelve-year-olds.

  “Eh, now, lad,” he asked, “is it trouble you’re having there? And what might be that contrivance of bars and wheels?”

  “It’s a bicycle; ever’body knows that.” From the sound of the boy’s voice, tragedy had reared a large and ugly head. “And I’ve only had it since last Christmas. Now it’s broke and I can’t fix it.”

  He held up a piece that had come from the hub of the wheel. “See? That’s the part that swells up when I brake it. It’s all broken, and a new coaster brake costs five dollars.”

  Ellowan took the pieces and smelled them; his eyes had not been deceived. It was brass. “So?” he asked. “Now that’s a shame, indeed. And a very pretty machine it was. But perchance I can fix it.”

  The boy looked up hopefully as he watched the elf draw out the brazier and tools. Then his face fell. “Naw, mister. I ain’t got the money. All I got’s a quarter, and I can’t get it, ‘cause it’s in my bank, and mom won’t let me open it.”

  The elf’s reviving hopes of breakfast faded away, but he smiled casually. “Eh, so? Well, lad, there are other things than money. Let’s see what we’ll be making of this.”

  His eyes picked out the relation of the various parts, and his admiration for the creator of the machine rose. That hub was meant to drive the machine, to roll free, or to brake as the user desired. The broken piece was a split cylinder of brass that was arranged to expand against the inside of the hub when braking. How it could have been damaged was a mystery, but the ability of boys to destroy was no novelty to Ellowan.

  Under his hands, the rough edges were smoothed down in a twinkling, and he ran his strongest solder into the break, filling and drawing it together, then scraping and abrading the metal smooth again. The boy’s eyes widened.

  “Say, mister, you’re good! Them fellers in the city can’t do it like that, and they’ve got all kinds of tools, too.” He took the repaired piece and began threading the parts back on the spindle. “Gosh, you’re little. D’you come out of a circus?”

  Ellowan shook his head, smiling faintly. The questions of children had always been candid, and honest replies could be given them. “That I did not, lad, and I’m not a midget, if that’s what you’d be thinking. Now didn’t your grandmother tell you the old tales of the elves?”

  “An elf!” The boy stopped twisting the nuts back on. “Go on! There ain’t such things—I don’t guess.” His voice grew doubtful, though, as he studied the little brown figure. “Say, you do look like the pi’tures I seen, at that, and it sure looked like magic the way you fixed my brake. Can you really do magic?”

  “It’s never much use I had for magic, lad. I had no time for learning it, when business was better. The honest tricks of my trade were enough for me, with a certain skill that was ever mine. And I wouldn’t be mentioning this to your parents, if I were you.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t; they’d say I was nuts.” The boy climbed on the saddle, and tested the brake with obvious satisfaction. “You goin’ to town? Hop on and put your bag in the basket here. I’m goin’ down within a mile of there—if you can ride on the rack.”

  “It would be a heavy load for you, lad, I’m thinking.” Ellowan was none too sure of the security of such a vehicle, but the ride would be most welcome.

  “Naw. Hop on. I’ve carried my brother, and he’s heavier’n you. Anyway, that’s a Mussimer two-speed brake. Dad got it special for Christmas.” He reached over for Ellowan’s bag, and was surprised by its lightness. Those who help an elf usually found things easier than they expected. “Anyway, I owe you sumpin’ for fixin’ it.”

  Ellowan climbed on the luggage rack at the rear and clutched the boy tightly at first. The rack was hard, but the paving smoothed out the ride, and it was far easier than walking. He relaxed and watched the road go by in a quarter of the time he could have traveled it on foot. If fortune smiled on him, breakfast might be earned sooner than he had hoped.

  “Well, here’s where I stop,” the boy finally told him. “The town’s down, there about a mile. Thanks for fixin’ my bike.”

  Ellowan dismounted cautiously, and lifted out his bag. “Thank’ee for helping me so far, lad. And I’m thinking the brake will be giving you little trouble hereafter.” He watched the boy ride off on a side road, and started toward the town, the serious business of breakfast uppermost in his mind.

  * * * *

  Breakfast was still in his mind when midday had passed, but there was no sign that it was nearer his stomach. He came out of an alley and stopped for a few draws on his pipe and a chance to rest his shoulders. He’d have to stop smoking soon; on an empty stomach too much tobacco is nauseating. Over the smell of the smoke, another odor struck his nose, and he turned around slowly.

  It was the clean odor of hot metal in a charcoal fire, and came from a sprawling old building a few yards away. The sign above was faded, but he made out the words: MICHAEL DONAHUE—HORSESHOEING AND AUTO REPAIRS. The sight of a blacksmith shop aroused memories of pleasanter days, and Ellowan drew nearer.

  The man inside was in his fifties, but his body spoke of strength and clean living, and the face under the mop of red hair was open and friendly. At the moment, he was sitting on a stool, finishing a sandwich. The odor of the food reached out and stirred the elf’s stomach again, and he scuffed his sandals against the ground uneasily. The man looked up.

  “Saints presarve us!” Donahue’s generous mouth opened to its widest. “Sure, and it’s one o’ the Little Folk, the loike as me feyther tolt me. Now fwhat—Och, now, but it’s hungry ye’d be from the look that ye have, and me eatin’ before ye! Here now, me hearty, it’s yerself as shud have this bread.”

  “Thank’ee.” Ellowan shook his head with an effort, but it came harder this time. “I’m an honest worker, sir, and it’s one of the rules that I can’t be taking what I cannot earn. But there’s never a piece of copper to be found in all the city for me to mend.” He laid his hands on a blackened bench to ease the ache in his legs.

  “Now that’s a shame.” The brogue dropped from Donahue’s speech, now that the surprise of seeing the elf was leaving him. “It’s a good worker you are, too, if what my fathe
r told me was true. He came over from the old country when I was a bit of a baby, and his father told him before that. Wonderful workers, he said you were.”

  “I am that.” It was a simple statement as Ellowan made it; boasting requires a certain energy, even had he felt like it. “Anything of brass or copper I can fix, and it’ll be like new when I finish.”

  “Can you that?” Donahue looked at him with interest. “Eh, maybe you can. I’ve a notion to try you out. You wait here.” He disappeared through the door that divided his smithy from the auto servicing department and came back with a large piece of blackened metal in his hand. The elf smelled it questioningly and found it was brass.

  Donahue tapped it lightly. “That’s a radiator, m’boy. Water runs through these tubes here and these little fins cool it off. Old Pete Yaegger brought it in and wanted it fixed, but it’s too far ruined for my hands. And he can’t afford a new one. You fix that now, and I’ll be giving you a nice bit of money for the work.”

  “Fix it I can.” Ellowan’s hands were trembling as he inspected the corroded metal core, and began drawing out his tools. “I’ll be finished within the hour.”

  Donahue looked doubtfully at the elf, but nodded slowly. “Now maybe you will. But first, you’ll eat, and we’ll not be arguing about that. A hungry man never did good work, and I’m of the opinion the same applies to yourself. There’s still a sandwich and a bit of pie left, if you don’t mind washing it down with water.”

  The elf needed no water to wash down the food. When Donahue looked at him next, the crumbs had been licked from the paper, and Ellowan’s deft hands were working his clever little tools through the fins of the radiator, and his face was crinkling up into its usual merry smile. The metal seemed to run and flow through his hands with a will of its own, and he was whistling lightly as he worked.