Elfhome

The artistic freedom of Pittsburgh would explain why most of the elves that came to the city were artists. Weavers. Potters. Painters. Musicians. They settled close to the enclaves and sold their wares to humans. They were all young and they all had been Wind Clan. But that was most likely about to change. Merry was probably just the first of the Stone Clan artists to arrive.

The next Snow Patrol song cued up on the iPod.

“Oh I don’t know this one!” Merry waved her mallets in agitation. “He didn’t have this song.”

“He?”

“Chiming of Metal in Wind.” Merry gave Windchime’s proper name in Elvish.

The songbook with the mangled Simon and Garfunkel lyrics clicked into place. Windchime had been called back to Easternlands last spring by his family. He had left with a solar battery recharger, three mpeg players and promises to return within a decade or two. His leaving had seriously crippled the band he played with since all their sets were built around his olianuni.

“If you know Windchime, you could have gone to Moser.”

Merry made a raspberry. “I asked for reference letter, but Chiming of Metal said I was too young to travel alone. He wasn’t sure if Briar Rose on Wind would let Rustle of Leaves above Stone stay. He was sure, though, that she would refuse someone else from the Stone Clan, since they only needed one olianuni player.”

Yeah, that sounded like Briar. Carl Moser technically owned the artist commune but his elfin lover had ultimate veto power. Oilcan hadn’t heard anything about a new olianuni player in town, but then again, elves operated on a different time sense than humans.

“When was Rustle of Leaves coming to Pittsburgh?”

“He left ahead of me.”

#

Pittsburgh and its outlying suburbs had been home to two million humans before the first Startup. Only sixty thousand remained. It meant whole sections of the city were nearly abandoned. Finding housing was easy — making it safe and livable was the trick.

Carl Moser was leading vocalist and bass guitar for his band Naekanain, Elvish for “I don’t understand,” which was usually the first thing humans learned to say. Moser had laid claim to entire block of porch front row houses on the edge of the Strip District. He was in the constant state of renovation as he merged the individual houses into a commune for artists. The place confused most humans since it presented twelve front doors to visitors. Since only the middle seven of the twelve houses had so far been merged into “main house,” it was sort of an intelligence test. The “front” door was the one painted Wind Clan blue with Moser’s name written out phonetically in Elvish on the lintel.

Moser threw open the door a few minutes after Oilcan rang the bell a third time. “Freaking hell, I’m going to take this damn thing off its hinges if no one else answers the frigging door.”

“Naeso sae kailani.” Briar barked somewhere in the back the rambling house. The High Elvish was an extremely polite way to say “no way in hell.”

“Then answer the damn door!” Moser shouted back in English.

“It’s not my job.” Briar called back.

“Not my job, not my job.” Moser muttered in falsetto and then shouted. “Then freaking tell someone else to answer the door!”

“Floss Flower!” Briar shouted in Elvish.

“Shya.” The reply from the newest resident, a weaver, came from somewhere far to the right.

“You’re door guard for now on!” Briar shouted.

There was a pause in the clacking of loom and then a slightly defeated, “Shya.”

“Elves.” Moser growled quietly in English. “Always ‘who answers to whom.’ Who freaking cares as long as it gets done?”

“Anarchist,” Oilcan said.

Moser pumped his hand over his head. “Freedom!”

“You’ve gotta give for what you take.” Oilcan sang the George Michaels tune.

Moser launched into song. “Freedom! Freedom!” He jerked his head to indicate that Oilcan was to come in as he continued to sing, his fingers picking out chords on an air guitar. “You’ve gotta give for what you take!”

Merry eyed the Frankenstein monster of a room beyond the front door. Originally it was the living room with a large archway to the dinning room and a staircase to the second floor. The stairs were completely walled off with plywood and a steel garage door had been installed in the archway so the foyer could act as a barbican. All the enclaves out on the rim had similar fortified entrances, but usually more elegantly decorated. Oilcan tugged Merry gently inside and made sure the door was locked behind her.

The two houses to the right and four to the left of the building they entered had been merged into the great “main” residence. The load bearing walls between the houses had been carefully breeched so the dinning rooms merged into one long room. Moser had paid someone that could cut ironwood to make him a twenty foot long table with nearly two dozen mismatched chairs around it. Platters of food were laid out for dinner.