Day 22: The Broad-Ford Crow, final part
Remember this one? It was something I started for the fairytale challenge over at the saiyuki_wk_au comm.
Rated PG for fairy-tale-ness. I haven't done much editing to it, but I may before I post properly over there. (Or I may just leave it as it is, hahaha! It took me so long to finish!)
To refresh your memory, here's the first and second parts.
Enjoy!
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X. The Third Brother
The youngest brother stepped through the doorway and found himself standing on a hill, halfway up its rocky surface, the hill itself presiding over a wood and a stream with a bridge across it.
His brother--the closest to him in age--stood before the bridge, speaking with a man who held the reins to a handsome horse. It took a moment for the youngest to recognize the man, but then he knew him: he was his brother's friend, dead now for a few years. The youngest brother frowned thoughtfully. It seemed the Broad-Ford Crow had not lied. What the brothers sought was indeed to be found in this strange place.
A wind rushed past the youngest brother, and he saw something, a white blur, go speeding by him and, somehow, it passed right through the friend of his brother. Immediately, a change came over the man. The expression on his face changed. He and the third brother had been talking amicably, without the rancor that had grown between them just before their separation. Now, he appeared to be in a black, dangerous mood. His eyes, brown before, flashed yellow. His hand drifted to the lash fastened on his belt.
"Brother!" cried the youngest. "Look out!"
And the third brother turned his head, even as his friend drew out the lash.
The youngest brother scrambled down the hill, half-sliding, stumbling over rocks and grass and acquiring bruises and scrapes. Still, he put himself between his brother and the danger, and stopped the other man from using his lash.
“What’s wrong?” said the third brother. “What has happened?”
The former friend was big and strong, and the youngest brother struggled to keep him at bay. At last, he and his brother managed to pin him to the ground.
"He is under a spell," said the youngest. "If we let him go, he will surely kill us."
“But he is my friend,” said the third brother.
The man struggled beneath them, nearly throwing the two of them off as he kicked his legs and twisted. The two brothers held on tight and managed to subdue him again.
The third brother paused for breath before continuing.
“Even if he is bespelled,” he said. “He is still my friend, and I won’t allow him to come to harm.”
“If we had rope, we could tie him up,” said the youngest. “And then we could leave this place without fear that he would come after us while we search for our elder brothers.”
The third brother looked at the youngest then.
“They are here?” he said. “But I thought-perhaps-that the Broad-Ford Crow had killed them, or made them his creatures.”
“We are all in danger,” said the youngest. “We have to find them and escape this place.”
“Can we find them?” said the third brother.
“I believe we can,” said the youngest. “I found you, didn’t I?”
After some thought, the brothers came up with a plan. They worked together and, with no small difficulty, tied the man to his horse with the reins. A slap on the horse’s rump sent the man safely off into the woods, away from the brothers. The third brother stood for a while, silent, and looking out at the green distance beyond the bridge.
“We’d become friends again,” he said. “And then this happened.”
“I’m sorry,” said the youngest brother. “If we could have saved him…”
“I know,” said the third brother. “It’s not your fault. But you said he had been magicked? How did you know that?”
And so the youngest brother explained what he had learned, on his own and from Crow-of-the-Ford, about how this place was magic, and the principles that governed it were very different, how the heart and the will ruled here. The two brothers then went, together, to the door on the hill overlooking the bridge. And together they opened the door and walked through, the door slowly closing behind them.
The half-real white owl slipped through the cracked-open door. The door shut, pinning one of its tail feathers there even as the door locked itself with an ominous series of clicks. Crow-of-the-Ford’s magic settled into the door, like blood soaking into leather, and the owl knew that door would never open again.
The owl pulled hard, freed itself and flew on, leaving a single, white feather behind.
XI. Brother and Sister
The two brothers, youngest and third, found themselves stepping from the hill in the woods into a bedroom. They blinked as their eyes adjusted to the change, and it took a moment or two beyond that to realize that this place was very, very familiar. The beams supporting the roof were dark but clean, and the whitewashed walls, hung with a few bright tapestries, angled down from the ceiling just so. Tucked beneath the eaves was a bed. The covers were rumpled and it was empty. A single window presided at the opposite end of the room from the door, looking out onto a mix of pasture and woods, with a dirt path weaving through it all.
"But this is home," said the third brother.
"Where else would our older brother be?" said the youngest. "Sister has been most important to him, ever since..."
He laid a hand on the bed. It was still warm.
"Come on," he said. "Let's keep looking."
The two brothers opened the door, which led to a narrow little staircase, and they soon were on the first floor of the house. A fire burned in the hearth, and a steaming kettle hung over the flames. Two cups sat at the small table, flanking two plates with crumbs. There wasn't anyone there, though, for all the signs of life.
They checked the two other rooms, but neither their brother nor their sister were to be found. And so the brothers went outside, into the little, fenced-in yard that stood between the house and the fields around it. In the far corner of the yard grew an apple tree, whose branches spread wide over the fence and yard. In spring, the perfume of the blossoms was heady, and the petals shed blanketed the ground with white.
That scent was overpowering now; in all their years of living at the house, never had the apple tree flowered so. The falling petals were a snowstorm, and the ground was inches deep, and hardly a branch could be seen for the profusion of blossoms. And it was there, in the thickest of the perfumed, flowered air, that the two brothers glimpsed who they were looking for, a flash of scarlet in the white.
The brothers approached the tree. Lifting aside a few drooping branches, they found their brother and sister leaning against the scarred bark of the trunk. As soon as the youngest and third brothers approached, the second brother put an arm protectively around his sister. For though it was true she was sister to all of them, the second-oldest brother was closest to her, and when she had lapsed into her strange sickness, he had been the one to mourn and grieve without end. And it was his desire that had brought him here, to a place where she did not sleep but was alive and well.
"Look, brothers," he said. "Sister is awake."
Though tears ran down his face, the second-oldest brother smiled.
The youngest brother and the third looked at each other, and they looked at their second-oldest brother and the way he clung to their sister.
"Come, brothers," said she. "Won't you sit with us?"
She sank down onto the carpet of petals, and the second-oldest brother, arm over her shoulder, slid along the tree trunk with her, never letting go of her, as if he were afraid that if he stopped touching her that she would fall asleep again, or that she would disappear and he would never find her again.
The third brother and the youngest shook their heads.
"She isn't…" said the youngest. "This isn't…"
Though he lost his words, the second-oldest seemed to understand. He frowned.
"I won't leave her," he said. "I can't."
The second-oldest brother stood between his brothers and his sister, as if he were trying to protect her from them.
"Stay, brother," she said. "Please. Don't let them separate us again."
She draped her arms around his shoulders and her lips brushed his cheek. She whispered into his ear, and the second-oldest brother nodded. His hair tangled in hers, red flashing through dark.
The youngest brother looked at the two of them, standing there, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. It wasn't right. Something wasn't right. It took him a minute to figure out, but when he did, it chilled him.
Their sister was too tall. She was nearly a foot too tall, to be able to rest her arms and chin against their second-oldest brother like that. And even as they looked, her hair was changing color, slowly lightening to blend with their brother's, and the angles of her face were, ever so subtly, sharpening.
Whatever she was, she was not their sister.
"Look at her, brother," said the third-oldest. "Can you claim to recognize her now? She is nothing like our sister: she has bespelled you!"
The second-eldest brother looked at her. He smiled.
"What does it matter, when she is alive and well," he said. "The sickness has changed her appearance, but inside she is still my sister."
He looked pale and tired even as he smiled, and the not-sister' eyes brightened like quicksilver, like marsh fire. She seemed to leech the very life out of him, wearing him out even as she grew stronger and brighter and continued to change. He sat, back against the tree, and she laid her head in his lap, smiling up at him with a face that had never been their sister's.
"Tell them to leave us," she said.
Her voice was sibilant and harsh. The second-eldest nodded.
"Leave us," he said. "If you do not want to join in our happiness and live as we once lived, as we should have always lived."
He stroked the not-sister's hair, slowly, repetitive, and his eyelids drooped. He yawned. His hand rested, still, on the head in his lap.
The youngest had a dreadful premonition. If their brother fell asleep, they would never get him out. He nudged his brother, who nodded.
"Let us make amends," the third brother said. "Brother, sister, please. It has been too long since all of us were together."
They approached slowly, wading through the white petals. The second-eldest was struggling to keep his eyes open, but he smiled at his brothers.
"It's good to be home again," he said. "I'm so tired."
The youngest reached the two of them first, and he stretched out a hand to shake his brother into wakefulness. The not-sister snapped its jaws together, and severed the littlest two fingers from that hand. She gulped them down, and color flushed through her pale skin. The youngest cried out in pain, and blood splattered across one cheek of the second-eldest brother.
The spurt of fresh blood across his face roused him completely: the two brothers saw him snap into an alertness they hadn't seen ever since they had separated in the beech wood that encircled the Broad-Ford Crow's cabin. The horror in his eyes was plain: he shoved the thing's head off of him and stood quickly beside his brothers.
"Stay, please," it said.
It reached for him with clawed hands. The second-eldest shook his head. All three brothers backed away slowly, flanking the youngest, who was wrapping his hand in a bit of cloth torn from his shirt.
All three of them ran for the house and the door within it, and the not-sister howled after them.
The door was open only a fraction of an inch: all three brothers heaved on it hard, and even then they only just slipped through.
The sound of the not-sister came too, and though the door cut it off, a little bit came through, and changed from a single, sustained note to a dark little shadow that flew through the air.
But the brothers did not see this. They had only their eldest brother in mind now.
XII. The Nothing-Bird's Spell
All three brothers came into a darkened room. Their eldest brother stood in the middle of it, and shades surrounded him. He spoke to them, though he might as well have spoken to the air for all the realness they held, and yet he acted as if these figments were people.
"He looks happy," said the second-oldest.
The third brother and the youngest nodded.
"It will break his heart to leave," said the third.
"It will kill him if he doesn't," said the youngest.
He looked to the second-oldest, solemn.
"I have no doubt you would have died as well, had we left you," he said.
The second oldest looked at the youngest's hand, at the red-stained bandage around it. He sighed, but nodded.
They tried to get their eldest brother's attention, but no matter how they put themselves between him and what he saw, all he saw were the illusions before him and not the reality.
And then a small bird, a little nothing-bird flew before them. Each of the brothers swore to seeing a different bird, but one thing was clear: the bird brought magic in its wake. The shades faded away, until the four brothers alone were left, along with one other. A woman. Though their reactions varied, each knew her as the woman the eldest had once loved, who had been loved only for a short time before her death.
The eldest brother recoiled from her as if she were a ghost bent on harm and vengeance. She smiled at him, and the other three brothers could see the tears glittering on her cheeks.
"Run, my love," she said. "Run."
And he ran, dragging his brothers along with them, though it was unclear if he ran for her sake, or for his.
The door out of the eldest's dreams brought them to the stone corridor, and the stairs that led out of that strange and powerful place were within reach.
"Come, brothers," said the youngest. "Let us leave this place!"
All four brothers nodded in agreement.
"I think not."
And the Broad-Ford Crow came between them and the stairs.
"Get out of our way," said the eldest.
"We will not stay here," said the second-oldest.
"There is nothing here for us," said the third brother.
"Let us walk in peace," said the youngest. "We wish only to leave."
A dark and dreadful force gathered around Crow-of-the-Ford, and the brothers, one by one, were brought to their knees before it. Crow-of-the-Ford smiled down at them.
"You shall stay," he said. "And you too, bowing before me, shall be made into familiars and do the work that I have set you, and you will be grateful to call me master."
And then, like the rushing of a waterfall, like the settling of a thousand pairs of wings coming to rest, came the Broad-Ford Crow's three familiars: the white owl, the scarlet jay, and the dark little nothing-bird. They shifted, from foot to foot, on the stone floor.
"Ah," said Crow-of-the-Ford. "My pets. You have done a good work today, in my name. You shall be richly rewarded."
The owl gave a long, low hoot. The scarlet jay gave its harsh cry. The nothing-bird trilled a high, clear sound. The birds began to change.
"No!" said the Broad-Ford Crow. "It cannot be!"
Three men stood before the brothers now, between them and Broad-Ford Crow. One had hair as red as the feathers of the scarlet jay; one had snowy white hair and a single eye as yellow as the owl's; and the third, a youth, was as small and dark and quiet as the nothing-bird had been. They were dressed plainly, and seemed to make much effort of standing there.
"You broke the spells holding us here," said the red-haired man. "And for that we are grateful."
"We could kill the Crow-of-the-Ford for you," said the yellow-eyed man. "We were not his creatures, and yet he used us just the same."
The red-haired man and the white both looked angry.
"No," said the nothing-boy. "Esstet wants him. Can't you hear it?"
The three men cocked their heads in unison, staring up at the stone ceiling of the hall.
The Broad-Ford Crow paled.
"I command this place," he said. "And I command you as well, though you have never appeared before me as you do now."
"Did you think you couldn't be fooled?" said the nothing-boy. "That this place wasn't powerful in its own right?"
"It trapped us here," said the white-haired man. "And so we served its purposes until you came along."
"You were a hard master, and ignorant of the nature of Esstet," said the red-haired man.
"Esstet would have kept these brothers and made them its creatures, if you hadn't interfered," said the nothing-boy. "Instead, it now looks to you."
Crow-of-the-Ford frowned.
"I have explored this place, mastered it with my will," said Crow-of-the-Ford. "There is nothing left here that I do not know."
The red-haired man laughed sharply, as harsh as the jeering of the scarlet jay he had been.
"How sure are you that the magic is yours?" said the nothing-boy.
And the Broad-Ford Crow was silent.
"Just as Esstet showed these brothers what they sought, Esstet gave you what you desired," said the nothing-boy. "It gave you power, power you could use as your own."
"You were blinded," said the red-haired man. "You did not question yourself, so confident were you."
"We all fell to pride," said the white-haired man. "But you have fallen further than most."
"Tell us," said the red-headed man. "How long has it been since you wandered the roads, left this place behind for more than a day or two?"
The three bird-men walked closer to the Broad-Ford Crow, and the Broad-Ford Crow retreated from them.
"It cannot be," he said. "It cannot-"
He backed further and further, until he hit the stone wall. And then, when he could go no further, he began to quail before the men who had served him. The jay, the owl, and the nothing-bird encircled him, making a ring of their bodies. And when they broke the ring, a crow cawed and burst out of the narrow gap. Cursing in its own tongue, it flew away into the darkness.
"It is done," said the youth.
The stones around them rumbled ominously. Further down where none of them could see, stones began breaking free.
"You must run," said the red-haired man. "Esstet is angry that we have broken free, and would rather all of us die."
The walls began to crumble, and great chunks of the ceiling fell and raised huge clouds of dust. The yellow-eyed man laughed.
"We will fight it, long enough for you to escape," he said. "It will be a fitting end, for had we not fought long ago, the crow would never have puppeted us all."
The youth bowed his head.
"Good luck to you," he said.
And all three men changed once more, into bright sheets of light, and they kept the four brothers from harm, holding the stonework up as they escaped.
Part XIII: Home
The brothers stumbled out of the Crow-of-the-Ford's cabin and ran as fast as their tired legs and lungs allowed. No sooner did they reach the woods that ringed the building than a great, rumbling, tearing sound came, and the ground shook and threw the brothers down. The whole clearing collapsed into itself, leaving a great raw wound in the earth. After a quick look at the devastation, they walked on.
The brothers did not stop walking until they exited the beech wood and came to the main road. And then, they sat at the side of the road so that other travelers might pass them as they discussed what to do next.
"We were lucky," said the youngest. "We all could have died."
"Or worse," said the second-oldest. He looked, guiltily, at the youngest's hand.
"I found what I was looking for, but it wasn't real," said the third brother.
"It was real," said the first. "But it was not for us."
"I am tired of wandering," said the youngest.
"As am I," said the second-oldest.
"And I," said the third.
He looked to the eldest.
"Brother," he said. "We have journeyed long and far. Surely, might we now travel home, having found what we were seeking?"
The eldest brother nodded.
"It has been a long time since we were home," he said. "I, too, am tired."
And so the four brothers set down the road, leaving the beech wood and the memory of the Broad-Ford Crow far behind.
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A kind of fitting end, I hope! Although the thing with Omi threw me for a loop when I thought of it, I'm glad I put it in because otherwise they all kind of escape unscathed. Generally speaking, you don't get away with doing something dangerous in a fairy tale. By the way, that bit under the apple tree was where I stalled out for months. I just couldn't think of a way to separate Ran from Aya.
I wonder what I'll do for tomorrow?
~later
Rated PG for fairy-tale-ness. I haven't done much editing to it, but I may before I post properly over there. (Or I may just leave it as it is, hahaha! It took me so long to finish!)
To refresh your memory, here's the first and second parts.
Enjoy!
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X. The Third Brother
The youngest brother stepped through the doorway and found himself standing on a hill, halfway up its rocky surface, the hill itself presiding over a wood and a stream with a bridge across it.
His brother--the closest to him in age--stood before the bridge, speaking with a man who held the reins to a handsome horse. It took a moment for the youngest to recognize the man, but then he knew him: he was his brother's friend, dead now for a few years. The youngest brother frowned thoughtfully. It seemed the Broad-Ford Crow had not lied. What the brothers sought was indeed to be found in this strange place.
A wind rushed past the youngest brother, and he saw something, a white blur, go speeding by him and, somehow, it passed right through the friend of his brother. Immediately, a change came over the man. The expression on his face changed. He and the third brother had been talking amicably, without the rancor that had grown between them just before their separation. Now, he appeared to be in a black, dangerous mood. His eyes, brown before, flashed yellow. His hand drifted to the lash fastened on his belt.
"Brother!" cried the youngest. "Look out!"
And the third brother turned his head, even as his friend drew out the lash.
The youngest brother scrambled down the hill, half-sliding, stumbling over rocks and grass and acquiring bruises and scrapes. Still, he put himself between his brother and the danger, and stopped the other man from using his lash.
“What’s wrong?” said the third brother. “What has happened?”
The former friend was big and strong, and the youngest brother struggled to keep him at bay. At last, he and his brother managed to pin him to the ground.
"He is under a spell," said the youngest. "If we let him go, he will surely kill us."
“But he is my friend,” said the third brother.
The man struggled beneath them, nearly throwing the two of them off as he kicked his legs and twisted. The two brothers held on tight and managed to subdue him again.
The third brother paused for breath before continuing.
“Even if he is bespelled,” he said. “He is still my friend, and I won’t allow him to come to harm.”
“If we had rope, we could tie him up,” said the youngest. “And then we could leave this place without fear that he would come after us while we search for our elder brothers.”
The third brother looked at the youngest then.
“They are here?” he said. “But I thought-perhaps-that the Broad-Ford Crow had killed them, or made them his creatures.”
“We are all in danger,” said the youngest. “We have to find them and escape this place.”
“Can we find them?” said the third brother.
“I believe we can,” said the youngest. “I found you, didn’t I?”
After some thought, the brothers came up with a plan. They worked together and, with no small difficulty, tied the man to his horse with the reins. A slap on the horse’s rump sent the man safely off into the woods, away from the brothers. The third brother stood for a while, silent, and looking out at the green distance beyond the bridge.
“We’d become friends again,” he said. “And then this happened.”
“I’m sorry,” said the youngest brother. “If we could have saved him…”
“I know,” said the third brother. “It’s not your fault. But you said he had been magicked? How did you know that?”
And so the youngest brother explained what he had learned, on his own and from Crow-of-the-Ford, about how this place was magic, and the principles that governed it were very different, how the heart and the will ruled here. The two brothers then went, together, to the door on the hill overlooking the bridge. And together they opened the door and walked through, the door slowly closing behind them.
The half-real white owl slipped through the cracked-open door. The door shut, pinning one of its tail feathers there even as the door locked itself with an ominous series of clicks. Crow-of-the-Ford’s magic settled into the door, like blood soaking into leather, and the owl knew that door would never open again.
The owl pulled hard, freed itself and flew on, leaving a single, white feather behind.
XI. Brother and Sister
The two brothers, youngest and third, found themselves stepping from the hill in the woods into a bedroom. They blinked as their eyes adjusted to the change, and it took a moment or two beyond that to realize that this place was very, very familiar. The beams supporting the roof were dark but clean, and the whitewashed walls, hung with a few bright tapestries, angled down from the ceiling just so. Tucked beneath the eaves was a bed. The covers were rumpled and it was empty. A single window presided at the opposite end of the room from the door, looking out onto a mix of pasture and woods, with a dirt path weaving through it all.
"But this is home," said the third brother.
"Where else would our older brother be?" said the youngest. "Sister has been most important to him, ever since..."
He laid a hand on the bed. It was still warm.
"Come on," he said. "Let's keep looking."
The two brothers opened the door, which led to a narrow little staircase, and they soon were on the first floor of the house. A fire burned in the hearth, and a steaming kettle hung over the flames. Two cups sat at the small table, flanking two plates with crumbs. There wasn't anyone there, though, for all the signs of life.
They checked the two other rooms, but neither their brother nor their sister were to be found. And so the brothers went outside, into the little, fenced-in yard that stood between the house and the fields around it. In the far corner of the yard grew an apple tree, whose branches spread wide over the fence and yard. In spring, the perfume of the blossoms was heady, and the petals shed blanketed the ground with white.
That scent was overpowering now; in all their years of living at the house, never had the apple tree flowered so. The falling petals were a snowstorm, and the ground was inches deep, and hardly a branch could be seen for the profusion of blossoms. And it was there, in the thickest of the perfumed, flowered air, that the two brothers glimpsed who they were looking for, a flash of scarlet in the white.
The brothers approached the tree. Lifting aside a few drooping branches, they found their brother and sister leaning against the scarred bark of the trunk. As soon as the youngest and third brothers approached, the second brother put an arm protectively around his sister. For though it was true she was sister to all of them, the second-oldest brother was closest to her, and when she had lapsed into her strange sickness, he had been the one to mourn and grieve without end. And it was his desire that had brought him here, to a place where she did not sleep but was alive and well.
"Look, brothers," he said. "Sister is awake."
Though tears ran down his face, the second-oldest brother smiled.
The youngest brother and the third looked at each other, and they looked at their second-oldest brother and the way he clung to their sister.
"Come, brothers," said she. "Won't you sit with us?"
She sank down onto the carpet of petals, and the second-oldest brother, arm over her shoulder, slid along the tree trunk with her, never letting go of her, as if he were afraid that if he stopped touching her that she would fall asleep again, or that she would disappear and he would never find her again.
The third brother and the youngest shook their heads.
"She isn't…" said the youngest. "This isn't…"
Though he lost his words, the second-oldest seemed to understand. He frowned.
"I won't leave her," he said. "I can't."
The second-oldest brother stood between his brothers and his sister, as if he were trying to protect her from them.
"Stay, brother," she said. "Please. Don't let them separate us again."
She draped her arms around his shoulders and her lips brushed his cheek. She whispered into his ear, and the second-oldest brother nodded. His hair tangled in hers, red flashing through dark.
The youngest brother looked at the two of them, standing there, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. It wasn't right. Something wasn't right. It took him a minute to figure out, but when he did, it chilled him.
Their sister was too tall. She was nearly a foot too tall, to be able to rest her arms and chin against their second-oldest brother like that. And even as they looked, her hair was changing color, slowly lightening to blend with their brother's, and the angles of her face were, ever so subtly, sharpening.
Whatever she was, she was not their sister.
"Look at her, brother," said the third-oldest. "Can you claim to recognize her now? She is nothing like our sister: she has bespelled you!"
The second-eldest brother looked at her. He smiled.
"What does it matter, when she is alive and well," he said. "The sickness has changed her appearance, but inside she is still my sister."
He looked pale and tired even as he smiled, and the not-sister' eyes brightened like quicksilver, like marsh fire. She seemed to leech the very life out of him, wearing him out even as she grew stronger and brighter and continued to change. He sat, back against the tree, and she laid her head in his lap, smiling up at him with a face that had never been their sister's.
"Tell them to leave us," she said.
Her voice was sibilant and harsh. The second-eldest nodded.
"Leave us," he said. "If you do not want to join in our happiness and live as we once lived, as we should have always lived."
He stroked the not-sister's hair, slowly, repetitive, and his eyelids drooped. He yawned. His hand rested, still, on the head in his lap.
The youngest had a dreadful premonition. If their brother fell asleep, they would never get him out. He nudged his brother, who nodded.
"Let us make amends," the third brother said. "Brother, sister, please. It has been too long since all of us were together."
They approached slowly, wading through the white petals. The second-eldest was struggling to keep his eyes open, but he smiled at his brothers.
"It's good to be home again," he said. "I'm so tired."
The youngest reached the two of them first, and he stretched out a hand to shake his brother into wakefulness. The not-sister snapped its jaws together, and severed the littlest two fingers from that hand. She gulped them down, and color flushed through her pale skin. The youngest cried out in pain, and blood splattered across one cheek of the second-eldest brother.
The spurt of fresh blood across his face roused him completely: the two brothers saw him snap into an alertness they hadn't seen ever since they had separated in the beech wood that encircled the Broad-Ford Crow's cabin. The horror in his eyes was plain: he shoved the thing's head off of him and stood quickly beside his brothers.
"Stay, please," it said.
It reached for him with clawed hands. The second-eldest shook his head. All three brothers backed away slowly, flanking the youngest, who was wrapping his hand in a bit of cloth torn from his shirt.
All three of them ran for the house and the door within it, and the not-sister howled after them.
The door was open only a fraction of an inch: all three brothers heaved on it hard, and even then they only just slipped through.
The sound of the not-sister came too, and though the door cut it off, a little bit came through, and changed from a single, sustained note to a dark little shadow that flew through the air.
But the brothers did not see this. They had only their eldest brother in mind now.
XII. The Nothing-Bird's Spell
All three brothers came into a darkened room. Their eldest brother stood in the middle of it, and shades surrounded him. He spoke to them, though he might as well have spoken to the air for all the realness they held, and yet he acted as if these figments were people.
"He looks happy," said the second-oldest.
The third brother and the youngest nodded.
"It will break his heart to leave," said the third.
"It will kill him if he doesn't," said the youngest.
He looked to the second-oldest, solemn.
"I have no doubt you would have died as well, had we left you," he said.
The second oldest looked at the youngest's hand, at the red-stained bandage around it. He sighed, but nodded.
They tried to get their eldest brother's attention, but no matter how they put themselves between him and what he saw, all he saw were the illusions before him and not the reality.
And then a small bird, a little nothing-bird flew before them. Each of the brothers swore to seeing a different bird, but one thing was clear: the bird brought magic in its wake. The shades faded away, until the four brothers alone were left, along with one other. A woman. Though their reactions varied, each knew her as the woman the eldest had once loved, who had been loved only for a short time before her death.
The eldest brother recoiled from her as if she were a ghost bent on harm and vengeance. She smiled at him, and the other three brothers could see the tears glittering on her cheeks.
"Run, my love," she said. "Run."
And he ran, dragging his brothers along with them, though it was unclear if he ran for her sake, or for his.
The door out of the eldest's dreams brought them to the stone corridor, and the stairs that led out of that strange and powerful place were within reach.
"Come, brothers," said the youngest. "Let us leave this place!"
All four brothers nodded in agreement.
"I think not."
And the Broad-Ford Crow came between them and the stairs.
"Get out of our way," said the eldest.
"We will not stay here," said the second-oldest.
"There is nothing here for us," said the third brother.
"Let us walk in peace," said the youngest. "We wish only to leave."
A dark and dreadful force gathered around Crow-of-the-Ford, and the brothers, one by one, were brought to their knees before it. Crow-of-the-Ford smiled down at them.
"You shall stay," he said. "And you too, bowing before me, shall be made into familiars and do the work that I have set you, and you will be grateful to call me master."
And then, like the rushing of a waterfall, like the settling of a thousand pairs of wings coming to rest, came the Broad-Ford Crow's three familiars: the white owl, the scarlet jay, and the dark little nothing-bird. They shifted, from foot to foot, on the stone floor.
"Ah," said Crow-of-the-Ford. "My pets. You have done a good work today, in my name. You shall be richly rewarded."
The owl gave a long, low hoot. The scarlet jay gave its harsh cry. The nothing-bird trilled a high, clear sound. The birds began to change.
"No!" said the Broad-Ford Crow. "It cannot be!"
Three men stood before the brothers now, between them and Broad-Ford Crow. One had hair as red as the feathers of the scarlet jay; one had snowy white hair and a single eye as yellow as the owl's; and the third, a youth, was as small and dark and quiet as the nothing-bird had been. They were dressed plainly, and seemed to make much effort of standing there.
"You broke the spells holding us here," said the red-haired man. "And for that we are grateful."
"We could kill the Crow-of-the-Ford for you," said the yellow-eyed man. "We were not his creatures, and yet he used us just the same."
The red-haired man and the white both looked angry.
"No," said the nothing-boy. "Esstet wants him. Can't you hear it?"
The three men cocked their heads in unison, staring up at the stone ceiling of the hall.
The Broad-Ford Crow paled.
"I command this place," he said. "And I command you as well, though you have never appeared before me as you do now."
"Did you think you couldn't be fooled?" said the nothing-boy. "That this place wasn't powerful in its own right?"
"It trapped us here," said the white-haired man. "And so we served its purposes until you came along."
"You were a hard master, and ignorant of the nature of Esstet," said the red-haired man.
"Esstet would have kept these brothers and made them its creatures, if you hadn't interfered," said the nothing-boy. "Instead, it now looks to you."
Crow-of-the-Ford frowned.
"I have explored this place, mastered it with my will," said Crow-of-the-Ford. "There is nothing left here that I do not know."
The red-haired man laughed sharply, as harsh as the jeering of the scarlet jay he had been.
"How sure are you that the magic is yours?" said the nothing-boy.
And the Broad-Ford Crow was silent.
"Just as Esstet showed these brothers what they sought, Esstet gave you what you desired," said the nothing-boy. "It gave you power, power you could use as your own."
"You were blinded," said the red-haired man. "You did not question yourself, so confident were you."
"We all fell to pride," said the white-haired man. "But you have fallen further than most."
"Tell us," said the red-headed man. "How long has it been since you wandered the roads, left this place behind for more than a day or two?"
The three bird-men walked closer to the Broad-Ford Crow, and the Broad-Ford Crow retreated from them.
"It cannot be," he said. "It cannot-"
He backed further and further, until he hit the stone wall. And then, when he could go no further, he began to quail before the men who had served him. The jay, the owl, and the nothing-bird encircled him, making a ring of their bodies. And when they broke the ring, a crow cawed and burst out of the narrow gap. Cursing in its own tongue, it flew away into the darkness.
"It is done," said the youth.
The stones around them rumbled ominously. Further down where none of them could see, stones began breaking free.
"You must run," said the red-haired man. "Esstet is angry that we have broken free, and would rather all of us die."
The walls began to crumble, and great chunks of the ceiling fell and raised huge clouds of dust. The yellow-eyed man laughed.
"We will fight it, long enough for you to escape," he said. "It will be a fitting end, for had we not fought long ago, the crow would never have puppeted us all."
The youth bowed his head.
"Good luck to you," he said.
And all three men changed once more, into bright sheets of light, and they kept the four brothers from harm, holding the stonework up as they escaped.
Part XIII: Home
The brothers stumbled out of the Crow-of-the-Ford's cabin and ran as fast as their tired legs and lungs allowed. No sooner did they reach the woods that ringed the building than a great, rumbling, tearing sound came, and the ground shook and threw the brothers down. The whole clearing collapsed into itself, leaving a great raw wound in the earth. After a quick look at the devastation, they walked on.
The brothers did not stop walking until they exited the beech wood and came to the main road. And then, they sat at the side of the road so that other travelers might pass them as they discussed what to do next.
"We were lucky," said the youngest. "We all could have died."
"Or worse," said the second-oldest. He looked, guiltily, at the youngest's hand.
"I found what I was looking for, but it wasn't real," said the third brother.
"It was real," said the first. "But it was not for us."
"I am tired of wandering," said the youngest.
"As am I," said the second-oldest.
"And I," said the third.
He looked to the eldest.
"Brother," he said. "We have journeyed long and far. Surely, might we now travel home, having found what we were seeking?"
The eldest brother nodded.
"It has been a long time since we were home," he said. "I, too, am tired."
And so the four brothers set down the road, leaving the beech wood and the memory of the Broad-Ford Crow far behind.
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A kind of fitting end, I hope! Although the thing with Omi threw me for a loop when I thought of it, I'm glad I put it in because otherwise they all kind of escape unscathed. Generally speaking, you don't get away with doing something dangerous in a fairy tale. By the way, that bit under the apple tree was where I stalled out for months. I just couldn't think of a way to separate Ran from Aya.
I wonder what I'll do for tomorrow?
~later