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Fand dismissed most of the faeries in the castle immediately, "for their couest at Manannan’s estate, I wasn’t known as the Iron Druid, and the Fae rather liked me Circumstances were ular privilege of being served by Manannan and Fand in the kitchen It smelled of apples, and when I reh a door in the rear They set out a platter of fruit, cheese, and bread, then poured us each a flagon of ale and toasted our health They gave Oberon a ham bone with plenty of meat left on it

"Please tell ood," Oberon said

Yes, it’s okay

Oberon set his ears back and reared up on his hind legs playfully "Have at thee, Hamlet!" he said, and pawed at it a couple of ti off to enjoy it elsewhere

Manannan and Fand wanted to learn more about Granuaile since she was shortly to be a full Druid, so they encouraged her to talk about herself Flidais and Perun quickly lost interest, however, and began conducting a hushed conversation of their own, everywith the frisson of sexual tension

Before long, Granuaile was talking directly to Fand The god of the sea had apparently been waiting for this development, because Manannan jerked his head at me to repair to another roo out on his sheep pasture

"Fly with

It was unusual, but it seeed "Sure" We stripped and shifted to our bird forreat horned owl Manannan took his cloak of mists with him in his talons We leapt from theand coasted down to the sheep, where we shifted back to human Manannan quickly shook out his cloak and used it, enveloping us entirely in mist Then he bound the air around us so that no sound could travel out of a bubble around our heads

"Faeries and enchantments everywhere up there," he explained with a jerk of his head toward the castle, "and so inconspicuous while they eavesdrop I just wanted to have a ith ye that wouldn’t be overheard, and I didn’t want our lips read either"

"Okay," I said, though his preamble made me curious and more than a little nervous

"It’s not only Bacchus ants to see ye dead," he explained, "or who ht suspect you’re still alive There was an envoy fro if ye ht be alive after all"

"Well, I suppose it had to happen sohed "I actually have cause to blaed "Whatever vexes oat for ages The truth of the er developments of modern times is that more people have heard of dark elves today than at any other time in human history This is al and fantasy-based video games Or perhaps more credit is due to the artists who depicted them visually with dark skin and fantastic white hair; they had iical manes, as if they’d found so locks

Even literature got it wrong There are only a couple of passing references to dark elves in Sturluson’s Prose Edda, but they’re a bit confusing since they seem to conflate the dark elves with dwarfs I have often wondered how much of that was intentional; in my mind it’s impossible to make such a mistake They didn’t look a damn bit alike, if my sources were correct

To be fair, Snorri Sturluson had priorities other than filling in the history of the dark elves He wanted to preserve his country’sthe Christian authorities of the tiods descendants of the Trojans--and thus, to the Christians, not really gods at all, ure out a way to explain the dark elves satisfactorily Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Svartálfar had paid hied him to elide their existence all he wanted--perhaps more than he wanted

The reason that there is so little information about dark elves is that they tend to keep to themselves, and, in truth, from what little I have heard, this is rather kind of them Any interaction they have with humans tends to ruin the huot the short version o’ their history from one o’ the Álfar"

"The Álfar spoke to you? Why?"

"This was soo I had the story fro wrecks at the bottom o’ the Irish Sea Since he wanted a ure out where the nine realave me a map that he sas truth and told me a story about how the Svartálfar were born Would ye like to hear it?"

"Yes, I would--and I’d love to see thefor e as possible"

"That is wise, especially where fighting them is concerned"

"Why so?"

"Patience, Siodhachan I’ll tell all, even as he told it to o, even before the Tuatha Dé Danann had co of the Álfar--for there was only one kind of elf back then--coard, Álfheim, and Vanaheim at the top ell known, but less was known of the six lower realms The lowest three, in particular, were almost complete mysteries Niflheim was a land of ice, and it ithin that reallorious dead; Muspellheim was a land of fla the day of Ragnarok, when they could burn the whole of creation; but there was another land, both between and underneath thereat wyr, that did not even have a name, and no one kneaited there in the black silence