Uncollected Anthology: Fairy Tales: The Merchant of Elves

By Robert Jeschonek

Asa makes a living as a fixer, pretending to intercede with elves she doesn't believe in to keep construction projects running smoothly in tourist-booming Iceland. Most everyone believes in the "Hidden People" except her...but that changes when she unexpectedly leaps into a magical realm. The impact of her work ends up biting her in the butt, as unruly supernatural figures make extreme demands...and issue extraordinary threats to back them up. Can Asa keep elves and humanity from lashing out at each other by making an unprecedented deal to save them all? If her skills as a salesperson can't cut it, ancient magic could bring the modern world to its knees and expose dark secrets that are better left hidden forever.

Robert Jeschonek is an award-winning, envelope-pushing author whose fiction and comics have been published around the world. His urban fantasy novel, Earthshaker, features an edgy heroine with the power to control the substance of the Earth itself. His young adult fantasy, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, was named a Top Ten First Novel for Youth by Booklist magazine. Robert’s work has appeared in Fiction River, PodCastle, Pulp Literature, Galaxy’s Edge, and other publications, and he was nominated for a British Fantasy Award. He has written official Doctor Who fiction, as well as comics for DC Comics and others. Robert has won an International Book Award and a Scribe Award for Best Original Novel from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Jeschonek
• Release date: Jul 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463731994

Book preview

The Merchant of Elves

The Merchant of Elves

UNCOLLECTED ANTHOLOGY: FAIRY TALES

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Blastoff Books

Contents

Also by Robert Jeschonek

The Merchant of Elves

About the Author

Back Matter

Special Preview: Heaven Bent

UNCOLLECTED ANTHOLOGY: FAIRY TALES

THE MERCHANT OF ELVES

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

www.thefictioneer.com

Cover design by Allyson Longueira

Uncollected Anthology logo art © Tanya Borozenets / Dreamstime.com

Uncollected Anthology logo design © Stephanie Writt

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Boris Ryaposov

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

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Published by Blastoff Books, an imprint of Pie Press Publishing

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The Merchant of Elves

These are elf lands, all right. Crouching, Asa Grímsdóttir brushed her fingers over the mossy rock at her feet. "It's very plain to see."

Damn. Ivar, the burly construction foreman, tugged at his thick red beard. "I told the bosses we should bring in a psychic before we ever broke ground."

Now you've got a bunch of equipment that won't work right, said Asa, all thanks to those mischievous elves.

Ivar shook his head. "How can something we never see cause so much trouble?"

"They’re experts. They’ve been doing it as long as humans have lived in Iceland. Asa's long blonde hair fluttered in the stiff breeze as she frowned at a nearby backhoe, which had been idle for days. And you're falling further behind schedule by the minute."

It's the Blue Lagoon all over again, said Ivar. So how do we fix it?

The same way they fixed the Blue Lagoon project. Asa got to her feet and straightened her wooly sweater, its gray-and-white design mirroring the cloudy July sky. We give the elves what they want, and they'll let us get on with it.

You make it sound easy. Ivar, who was about Asa's age--somewhere in his thirties--and having a really bad week,