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Elfhames to our small one. Goldengrove existed upon sufferance, and a courteous blindness and on the
fact that Elfhame Misthold lay far to the north, in San Francisco, and had no knowledge of our small
Holding in the southern hills.
For Nicanaordil had led his clan out of Europe long before any other Sidhe had even begun to trouble
themselves over the encroaching mortals. The incursion of William of Normandy's troops into England
had prompted Nicanaordil to remove himself and his kin from a land so overrun with contentious mortals.
Goldengrove settled itself in southern California, and engaged in no further converse with other Elfhames.
Nicanaordil was restraint incarnate; slow to anger and slower still to take action.
And so when Sun-Descending arrived and laid claim to the City of Angels, in the days when the Spanish
ruled the human land, Lord Nicanaordil paid no heed to this encroachment upon his domain. After all, the
city then was little more than a gathering place for dust, fleas, and dealers in hides that stank so badly
even humans preferred to stay far upwind of the masses of stacked uncured cattle skin.
Nicanaordil observed Sun-Descending over the decades, watched and waited as the City of Angels
prospered and grew and Sun-Descending's Sidhe became troublesome. My brother and I overheard
our elders whispering that Lord Nicanaordil had almost made the decision to confront Sun-Descending
and banish its Sidhe from Goldengrove's lands, when Sun-Descending ceased to trouble our city. Once
again Nicanaordil's masterful control had proved wise. Sun-Descending's Sidhe had vanished; no action
need be taken.
The other Elfhame that intruded upon California's golden land was Misthold. But Misthold lay far to the
north, its Nexus anchored in the hills ringing San Francisco Bay. Lord Nicanaordil had begun to consider
what to do about Elfhame Misthold; in the fullness of time, he would come to a decision. Until then,
Misthold could be ignored. Perhaps time itself would resolve the question, as it had the matter of Elfhame
Sun-Descending.
And just as other Elfhames were ignored, so were the petty affairs of mortals. No Sidhe of any Elfhame
would have dreamed of interfering in the mortal war raging through the muddy trenches of Europe.
Certainly no one from Elfhame Goldengrove committed the utter folly of taking sides in a mortal quarrel.
America might at last enter the Great War, but the Sidhe saw no need to do so.
Then the war ended and for a time the future shone bright as the poppies that flowed over the hills like
living gold. Bright and brief as the lives of those flowers; by the time mortal infants born the year the first
conflagration ended grew into men and women, the peace bought with human blood had shattered
beyond repair. A dark lord rose to lead mankind along the iron road to destruction. A mortal lord, one
with no powers save those belonging to mortal men.
"That frightens me more than all else," my brother said, as we sat beneath a bent and ancient oak our
new resting place, on the road home from our illicit excursions into the city. Los Angeles grew endlessly;
to find a quiet spot well past the city where we could stop and study recently acquired treasures, could
safely banish theglamourie that ensured mortals saw us only as prosaically mundane as they themselves,
we had to travel farther and farther from what had once been a city square of hard-packed earth.
However, we had achieved a change-place at last, and now my brother stared at the headlines on the
first page of theLos Angeles Times we had bought at the bus stop.
"Let me see it again, Din." I held out my hand, and my brother Dinendal surrendered the newspaper. I
spread it out on the ground before me and stared at a photograph of German troops rolling through the
streets of Vienna. Crowds of Austrians lined the road; the men and women smiled, waved flags and
flowers. An overnight, bloodless annexation and Chancellor Hitler had proclaimed Austria to be rightfully
a part of the German Fatherland.
"The Austrians seem happy to see them," I said as I gazed at the photograph, and Dinendal replied,
"That is what frightens me."
"It's nothing to do with us." Only what any Sidhe would say. Mortal quarrels were meaningless to the
Sidhe. What men did to one another in the World Above was not our concern.
"No? I hope you're right, sister dear." Dinendal reached out. "Give it back; I want to read the rest of the
story."
"Not until I read the funny pages," I said, and paged through until I found the pages printed with the
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