The Flying Dutchman Tavern existed in eternal smog. Every morning, the landlord aired the fug collected the previous night by opening all the doors and windows. On the still days, it formed a low carpet of silver mist, ebbing and flowing like the waves that crashed on Bresco Bey.
Clarence stood at the bottom of the stairs fussing to get his pipe lit. He could smell the fresh morning air, the hot sunbaked dirt, and hear the whistling of his landlord as he cleaned in another room. With any luck, he would get through this day without a single person wishing him-
"Happy Birthday."
His head snapped to the right, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. His victim took a step back.
"Who are you?" Clarence demanded.
"I'm-"
"Shut up."
The well-wisher trembled. His skin was clammy, and his eyes were bloodshot.
"Well?" Clarence jabbed his pipe at the man's pocket. Owing to his obvious exhaustion, he easily worked out who he was and where he had come from.
"Oh!" The exhausted well wisher turned to a sack hanging from his belt. His hand got caught in his cloak as he tried to draw out his package. Clarence watched him fuss with a mean smile. They kept sending younger and younger messengers, pathetic, weak and fresh from the Leprechaun Jump Unit. They hoped he wouldn't be too cruel to them. It was too hot for a cloak, Gelding Town was a furnace. He couldn't fathom why the boy was wearing it other than to make himself look more official. "Here!" the exhausted messenger handed him a letter, hopeless relief played around his eyes. What did he want? Congratulations? Thanks?
Clarence took the package like it contained faeces. "You can go."
"But-"
"But what?" The words rolled off his tongue like acid.
"I've got another two days before I'm strong enough to Jump back to England." He couldn't meet Clarence's eye. His body turned sideways as if he expected Clarence to hit him.
"The Ship Inn has beds," Clarence said. Not that you could call a wooden plank with a moth-eaten deer skin chucked on top a 'bed'. He would not offer the messenger a room in the Flying Dutchman. The staff at the Ship Inn would find it entertaining to host a Leprechaun. They would charge him four times the amount the room was worth purely because the idiot could afford it. The boy took a few steps backwards, turned and stumbled out the open door into the strong sunlight beyond.
"Twenty-six." His landlord whistled, slapped down a wet rag and cleaned the sticky film from the wooden bar. "You were polite to that one." He nodded towards the door. Using his beard as a pointer.
In response, Clarence held the letter up to the light and curled his lip. "Can't they leave me in peace?" he grumbled. "I've done as they wished and lived a quiet life for the last five years."
His Landlord stuck his tongue between his lips as he continued to clean.
"What? I have!" Clarence moved across to the bar and slid onto one seat. "Look at this Fred. They've included a copy of the Joining Earth News as if they think I do not understand what's going on beyond this sleepy, insignificant part of our world."
"Are you going to open it?" Fred tapped the corner of the package and his lips turned up into a mock smile. "Or, Leprechaun, would you rather I drop it in my bucket?"
Clarence tore the letter open. As he scanned the neat writing his teeth barred, "They don't even wish me a happy birthday," he said whilst scanning down. "It's all the usual nonsense about duty, responsibility and their expectations of me forthwith."
Fred rang his cloth into the bucket and plunged his hand back into the water to continue cleaning. "So you'll be off to Bells spa, like usual, to drown your indignation at their correspondence in the comforting embrace of Molly Buttercup," he observed.
"Probably." Solace in the arms of Molly Buttercup wouldn't go amiss.
"Captain Pete won't be happy about that."
Clarence dropped the letter into his lap and cast his eyes to the ceiling. "Oh."
"I thought you were excited?" Fred splatted the cloth down on the bar again it showered Clarence with water. "I can't stand that dwarf, but he spent three months travelling to the world of Gia to fetch this fellow for you to fight. Half of Gelding Town's got money on you to win. By the Light, Clarence, half of Ireland is coming to Gelding Town tonight to watch Ren Green v Larry Pain."
Clarence's mouth twitched with amusement. That wasn't true.
"It's like you're not taking it seriously," Fred went on. He moved to the barrels of beer and replaced the spools for the taps. "Everybody enjoys watching a Leprechaun fight without magic. But no magic means no healing until it's over." He took several small mugs from hooks on the wooden beam above the bar. From each barrel, he extracted a paltry amount of ail and he passed the amber liquid to Clarence to test.
"This one's off," Clarence pointed to the second barrel. "I told you last night."
"Aye," Fred grumbled. "When you drank your way through my profits rather than going to train like you said you would."
"I made you money last night," Clarence protested. "Half those drinkers came in because I was playing the fiddle."
"And though you have a fine talent, winning this fight will make me more."
Clarence shoved the letter into his pocket and picked up the Joining Earth Newspaper. The front page was ablaze with news of the Pendragon's assassination. "Exactly how much have you bet?" he asked, but his attention was fixed on the article. The leader of the Dragon Lords was dead? How could that be?
"More than I can afford to lose." Fred leant forward and pushed the newspaper down so he could get Clarence's attention. "More than you can afford too," his brown eyes drilled into Clarence's green ones.
~
Larry's blood matted into Clarence's hair. He studied the torn skin across his knuckles, felt his magic flow to the cut, watched the damage re-knit at a sped-up rate and gave a deep apathetic sigh.
By the fireside, the physician tended to Larry. His hands eased over damaged tissue and bone. The blemishes showed up on the Menders own skin as they erased from the Human. At regular intervals, he turned to the fire and discharged the damage he had absorbed into the flames. They shot high up the chimney. Perhaps Clarence had gone too far, perhaps he shouldn't have run Larry's head into the wooden post, or smashed his fist into Larry's cheek so hard his jaw dislocated. He was trained to win fights. Even without magic to enhance him, he was deadly effective.
Now the actual fight was over the drinkers were having some fun. The crowd was so thick the air had turned to soup. In the centre of the mass, the villagers tried their luck against the sailors from Captain Pete's ship.
Cheering in the centre of the mass took Clarence's attention from his hand. A heavyset man crashed into his table. Clarence pushed him off and into the oncoming fist of his opponent. The onlookers closed in behind and obscured Clarence's view.
"Get out the way you rat-faced bastards." Captain Pete's filthy mouth cut through the sweating, drink fueled crowd. They parted to let the old sea dog through. Rotund and manic, Pete was less than four feet of solid muscle on spritely sea legs. He slid into the seat opposite Clarence and pushed a tankard across to him. "Your fight with Larry didn't make us enough," he said, scratching his face tattoo of a mermaid. "You will have to go again."
"Not a chance," Clarence muttered. "Larry was the best one of the lot tonight and I nearly killed him. People don't want to watch a Leprechaun fight a Human. it's unfair."
Pete puffed his cheeks and sat back, "I guess the 'no magic' rule is losing its appeal when you win every match, anyway."
"Not every match."
The dwarf laughed. "I thought Larry stood an excellent chance, but you made mincemeat out of him."
Clarence sat back. The crowd's attention was still on the fight, but his mind kept returning to the letter. It had bleached all the fun from his life. "I'm surprised the Physician is here," he said to distract himself. "I didn't remember to pay him in advance."
"He showed his fat little face at the start," Pete muttered. "Excuse me, sir, but do you want me to heal your contestants or shall I leave them to the Human butchers? I wish for payment sir, I am not given to charity." The Irish accent was spot on. Clarence's mouth twitched with humour, but when he failed to laugh Pete slammed down his tankard. "What is wrong with you tonight?"
"Your accent was awful."
"Says you and your own pathetic attempt to sound native. My accent's amazing, cheer up you miserable old ball sack."
Clarence pouted and reached for his drink.
"Talking of ball sacks," Fred continued. "How is your Landlord? I've not been to the Flying Dutchman since he banned me."
"I'll give Fred your regards, Pete. He can't afford to miss out on your custom. I'll see if he'll let you take up your rooms again when you're next in port."
"Spare me," Pete grumbled. "The Ship Inn is closer to the dock, cheaper, and I don't get shouted at for turning the place over in a fight. Anyway, I can't stand you and your charming green eyes. I will crash here with my own level of attractive."
"Foods awful here," Clarence picked up his pint. "Beer's awful too."
Pete downed his as if in protest. He slammed his tankard down on the table in a way that told Clarence it was final.
"You off?"
"Sailing on the morning tide. I'm bound for London, then I've got a rough crossing over to the Bermuda Sea Stones so I can get to Gaia. I won't be back for half a year, I expect. Don't like the long hauls, but I'm shipping silver back from Gaia. It'll be worth it."
"Wouldn't it be easier to take the canal to the Salisbury Henge Stones?"
"Too expensive. Shall I take your post? I can get it sent overland to Salisbury."
"No," Clarence said it too quickly. Pete raised an eyebrow, but he didn't push it.
"Well, princess. Happy ejection day." He stood, and in the process lost a foot of height. "I'll be off."
"Keep well, Pete." Clarence slid down in his seat as he watched Pete leave.
The fight night ended with a broken arm and a cheer. Most people dissipated once it was over. A handful of locals, sailors, and drunks remained. Clarence stayed on, watching as the fat physician mended the injured fighters. Clarence took the letter from his pocket and looked at it again, running his thumb down the side of the paper as he reread it. Every piece of correspondence from England upset him. He did not understand why he had the letter on him. He should have burned it without opening it. He pulled the candle closer, bit his top lip and with the slightest hesitation, he put the letter over the candle. When he could hold it no more he put it in Pete's empty tankard to finish. How he wished for something to distract him. Every time the letters came he had an overwhelming urge to do something reckless.
"If the Council of the Light finds out what we are doing, they will kill us in a thousand original ways," somebody hissed. "It just takes one Druid official to catch on and..."
"Shut up," a second voice whispered. "On your life, I swear, shut up."
Clarence sat back and tilted his head. Behind him was a fake wall created from old barrels and fishing nets. He supposed the whisperers had been there a while, but now was it quiet enough for him to hear them. They were drunk, it was clear from the way they were slurring.
"No. We need to talk. You've been avoiding me. You'll do something stupid," Urgent said.
"It's a dying world," the whisperer hissed.
"I know full well what it is, brother. It's a death sentence." Urgent's voice was squeaking with fear.
"No." The other slammed his hand down. "That portal painting is.." He tried to find the right word. Clarence tipped his chair back to hear what they were saying. "It's unique. It's the only one of its kind."
"It's not worth it" Urgent growled. The crowd was still so loud that Clarence struggled to hear what they were saying. His chair tipped too far back, and he slipped off it onto the floor. He scrambled up, pushed the chair against the barrels and pressed his ear to the wall. They were still speaking.
"It should have been destroyed three thousand years ago. It's been repainted so many times now it's hardly working. If anybody finds out about our people, we could alter the face of reality." Urgent's voice was bordering on manic fear.
"Don't be so dramatic," the whisperer mocked. "In a few days' time anybody unlucky enough to find Earth won't have a clue what we protected. But, we can redirect the sister painting should we bring it back here for repainting."
Urgent's voice turned to stone. "Try it and they will kill you."
"Do or die, brother," the whisperer told him. Clarence ran his teeth through his lip as he listened.
"Do or die alone." Clarence heard a chair scraping. He pulled his own back to his table and picked up his pint as a man with a ponytail walked past. He didn't look like a local.
Clarence's world was called Joining Earth. So named it because it had the most connections of any world to another. Some worlds it connected to, the trade worlds, had Earth-like names; Earthsea, Blue Earth, Terra, Gia. As far as he was aware there wasn't a world called Earth amongst them. Beyond the Trade Worlds, the Fringe Worlds were markedly different, and their names reflected it. Regardless of his ignorance, he had found a potential distraction from the shipwreck of his life. Mind made up, he went into the next booth.
"Jacko?" The surprise was real. "Didn't expect to see you."
The owner of the Rare Oddities Emporium studied Clarence with horror. "You're that Leprechaun- the-"
"I'll not mess around." Clarence cut over him. "I heard everything and I think I can help you..."
~
Fred's face was a mask of utter dejection. He cleaned a stack of tankards in a warm bucket of water in the kitchen. A fat grey cat called Okum stretched out on Clarence's lap as he relayed the story from the night before. "I told him I'd bring it back for him, that if I did it, he wouldn't get into trouble. He knows that it's a magnificent idea." Clarence leaned forward as he stuffed his pipe with tobacco again. Okum dug her claws into his leg. "Ow! I can use his painting to get there. I might not even be a day."
"Which Earth?" Fred's expression grew darker.
"Just Earth!" Clarence cried. "Jacko says the worlds been severed from the Transworld Network for so long that they can't even remember being part of it. They don't have any magical folk at all, not even Low Folk. Apparently, they think magic isn't real and that Leprechauns are ginger dwarfs who shit gold and float on rainbows."
"That's not too far from the truth in your case," Fred told him. Even though he was joking, his knuckles were still white, and he shifted from foot to foot. Clarence blew smoke in his face.
"Jacko said that his family have had their portal painting for seven generations. Before that, it belonged to somebody else who had it for nearly twelve. He's the first of his family to live in our world."
"And they all kept it quiet?" Fred's eyebrows rose.
"With reason. The Council would kill off his whole bloodline if they found out he had it. I'd wager the Council of the Light doesn't even know about Earth."
"Why does he want the Earth painting brought back?" Fred had gone pale. Clarence pretended not to have noticed.
"Some kind of war, I think he's using it for smuggling."
"It's treason, it's banned, he is using it for smuggling and you think it's a good idea to go?" Fred's voice was flat and the tendons in his neck tightened.
"Nobody will know I've gone if I leave before midday; everybody expects me to be in bed nursing a hangover. Think Fred, an entire world cut off from us. A world full of Humans who don't look to Magic to rule, who don't even believe in it. I want to see. The Humanist in me wants to see what utopia looks like."
"Utopia at war," Fred muttered. "Great."
"Every Empire has it's wars." Clarence jabbed the stem of his pipe in Fred's direction to make a point. "Don't you want to know what your kind can achieve free from the restrictions imposed by the Council?"
"They must have done something terrible?"
"Slaughtered all their overlords and destroyed their own portals." Clarence shrugged. "It was over three thousand years ago. They killed off anybody with magic following from the severance."
Fred clutched the side of the bucket of water to steady himself. "I've got a mind to report you to the Druids," he hissed. "These people sound like savages and you will get killed. Do you remember what happened last time you left? Three months of suspicion, and questions which I couldn't answer. They were this close to sending me for interrogation, this close." He held up his thumb and finger to show how close. "How can you be so inconsiderate?"
Clarence winced. "I want an adventure, Fred. If anybody comes, tell them where I am and let them deal with it."
Fred turned away, making a tutting noise as he went. "Sometimes I wonder why we are friends." He yanked up a stack of dry tankards and went back into the bar to hang them up.
Clarence left the Flying Dutchman with a spring in his step. Halfway into his journey to Traders Square, his spring lost its bounce. If anything happened, Necromancers would torture Fred, Jacko would die, they would destroy the painting and anybody else who knew him would be interrogated. Few people knew his secrets. Those who did would suffer for them.
Earth? It sounded so familiar. How different to the Network could it be?
His step got a little lighter. He was at the top of his game, sharp as a knife, with reflexes of a cat. He was young, healthy, attractive and smart. Nobody could touch him, especially not a bunch of Humans from Earth. However barbaric they might be, he was a Leprechaun. As soon as he thought it, he cursed his own entitlement. He was a Humanist and being a Humanist meant seeing Humans as equals. Including equally powerful. Regardless of their lack of power. Still. What could they do that would put him in danger?
He reached Jacko's shop to find the shutters bolted closed, and the door locked. When he strolled down the service lane, round the back, Jacko was packing up shop. A cart was halfway through being loaded. As Clarence stood watching, Jacko hurried out the back door. He saw Clarence, stopped what he was doing, and swore.
"Oi," Clarence shouted. "You said-"
"Be quiet!" Jacko turned and opened the door. "Get in here." He stood to one side to let Clarence through. Inside, there were boxes everywhere. From the smell of whisky breath, Jacko hadn't been to bed.
"Where are you going?"
"I can't believe you just asked me that; it's a costly business getting paintings redirected. It's through here-" he took a key and opened the door. The painting was huge. In its presence, Clarence's suspicions about Jacko dissipated.
"It's quite something, isn't it?" Jacko looked up at the canvas with fondness. "Quite something."
The painting showed a sunny flat landscape with a single tree on a hill. Nothing so remarkable that it would suggest any kind of danger beyond falling apples. the painting was beautiful, calm, full of light and hope. "So- What do I need to know before I go?" Clarence asked.
"Nothing much. You'll fit right in as long as you don't use your powers."
Clarence moved closer to the painting. "Where will you be when I bring the sister painting back?"
"Here," Jacko assured him. "I'll still have the property even if I've gone, just leave it here. I need to draw you a map, feel free to study the painting whilst I do."
The light caught in the ridges of the paint, he could even see the varnish cracking. Nothing in its qualities betrayed it as a magical item.
"There's nobody in Ireland, or on Joining Earth that could repaint it, is there?" He didn't turn round. The spells the Leprechaun craftsmen needed to trap a portal in the oil were complex.
"The art's lost. It's a shame the Council of the Light fears magic they can't regulate." His nose was so close to the paint he was centimetres from touching it. Linseed oil filled his nostrils and his shoulder-length dirty blonde hair cast a black patch over the painting's surface. He turned, expecting to take a map. He hadn't noticed Jacko slide behind him with a long dagger. The blade sliced into his skin and a rough shoulder barged into his side. He stumbled, his ankle caught on the edge of the painting and he fell through the surface.