Drew Tells a Story at the Weekly Story Session (August 21, 1996)

Drew resumes, "If you--yah, okay--um, Magpie--you know her?--she has, like, 
  this place for us to go and this thing, an egg, to get, from this person, a 
  Corax, 'xcept it's not an egg anymore, it was one somehow changed. Us--there 
  were five of us, Hank 'n' the Strider Rholeen 'n' the Fang Brittany 'n' the 
  Walkers Thena 'n' Kosh--you know them? And, um, this place was really far 
  off, so Magpie had to open a bridge to the place, and it was the longest 
  bridge I've walked--seemed like it took days."
Drew continues, not settling into the mantle of the storyteller with ease, 
  "'nd we went to this place that was pretty nice, with trees and plains and 
  such, only it wasn't that nice since blackbirds--ravens--flew by and 
  attacked for no reason. We had to kill some of them, and the rest flew off, 
  so we went off the same way to find out what was there."
Drew touches the tips of his fingers, propping his hands into the shape of a 
  'V' shape, point upwards, "And there was this mountain, by itself, you 
  know?", his hands break apart, and one circles around the other, "And there 
  was this green wall going 'bout it--this wall was, oh,", he raises his hand 
  as high as he can above his head, "Higher than that--really high, 'though I 
  could see some of the mountain--enough to see the doors in it, here and 
  there, closed up and way high up in it."
Drew mimes a wall directly in front of him, "The wall wasn't made of bricks or 
  anything like that--it had scales. Kosh--you know him?--he went up and did 
  this--", the Gaian hooks a finger, miming prying up a scale, "--And the wall 
  moved faster than a blink, and he--Kosh, not the wall--landed 'bout, oh, a 
  football field away", he begins to pace the distance, but stops, as the 
  clearing isn't that large.
Drew paces back into the clearing, a hand turning a slow circle like a clock 
  hand, "Couldn't go over it, so we went around to find the head. The wall was 
  a snake, and we found the head biting his own tail. I asked him to let us 
  through, 'nd Thena was saying sorry for what Kosh did, and the snake--", he 
  breaks it off, puzzled, "What do you call it? Talking but not talking--I 
  could hear that snake louder than anything 'though he didn't open his mouth. 
  Don't you do something like that?", he directs the query at the Galliard.
Drew repeats the word, "Mindspeak. The snake was mindspeaking, and talking 
  that way, and he was so loud, louder than--anything, and he didn't even seem 
  to be trying. He wouldn't let us into the mountain but he talked quieter 
  when I asked him."
"Now", the Gaian continues, "I was looking for a Corax, so I asked the snake 
  if he'd seen one 'nd who was in the mountain. The snake only said something 
  about a man with a bird on his shoulder being the Commander--but he also 
  said if we'd kill the man, he'd let us inside. I didn't know who this man 
  was--have you heard of a 'Commander of the storm'?"
Drew glances about the clearing, noticing the Walker several minutes after his 
  arrival, and nods in acknowledgement before picking the tale up again. "I 
  didn't know who this man was and I couldn't go killing people to make snakes 
  happy, but the snake let us in--saying if we didn't kill the man, the snake 
  would kill us. Anyhow. We got to go in--and it was so dark, no one could see 
  anything, so Brittany--you know her, the Fang? She went to glow so we could 
  see, and there was this person in front of us, saying hello and welcome to 
  his place."
Drew waves his arm in mock imitation of a greeting at Remy, before continuing. 
  "Surprised me so much, I went and asked if he was the Commander. He didn't 
  say no or yes, just said something about there being no military for 
  military titles, and said for us to be quiet, there was someone 
  upstairs--the Corax. So we talked to him, 'nd Kosh drew pictures--no, he did 
  that after the man--he said he was William--after William took us down, way 
  down to where this room was with this small raven in it."
Drew paces restlessly across the clearing, "And, um--so William was telling us 
  about the Corax, ruling the roost up in the mountain--he said he--William, 
  not the Corax--built the mountain and the Corax took over, and the Corax is 
  very old--like Magpie said--and evil, and he'd been taking eggs of his own 
  kind to make fetishes, killing the bird inside and taking the energy from 
  it--the shifting energy, to make a Wyld fetish."
Drew continues, "Magpie had already said that stuff, about the eggs, so he 
  seemed to be on the up and up, you know? Telling the truth and all, you 
  know? So he said he'd join us in bringing down the Corax, and it was like, I 
  said okay. It was an even longer trip going back up than it was down, and 
  there was this set of stairs--Brittany, you know her? She wouldn't go up 
  them at all, and wanted to stay downstairs--I think she would even have used 
  that big knife of hers to get her way, but William had a talk to her, you 
  know? And she went upstairs nicely as you please."
Drew continues his pacing, this time in a circle as though parading up a 
  spiral set of stairs, then stops. "This really thick set of doors was here, 
  'nd William said the Corax was on the other side, and this was up in the 
  mountain--say?" he breaks off, at Anne's question, "I wish I knew. No, I 
  take that back."
Drew raps the air in front of him sharply. "This door was thick, so Brittany 
  'nd I were in front, you know? 'nd we ran into--well, hit the doors--as hard 
  as we could, to get it open, and the doors broke open. Inside--I didn't get 
  to see for long before I got in there--inside, there was this chair, this 
  throne, in the middle of the floor, with someone sitting in it, and there 
  were a few thousand, maybe only a few hundred, but there were a lot, of 
  black birds, ravens, you know? They didn't do any flying away, but attacked, 
  and it got hard to see, nothing but black feathers everywhere. There were 
  some statues on each side of the door, 'nd Hank said the statues came alive 
  and grabbing at them."
Drew brushes back the hair from his face, tracing, with a wince, the visible 
  bone in a hole in the side of his face, "That Corax--biggest damn bird I 
  don't ever want to see again--gave a lot of trouble. Turned some people into 
  statues and turned some statues into walking, grabbing things, you know?"
Drew sweeps out his hand as if to level a mountain, "Everyone was hurting, but 
  when the Corax died, all the birds flew away and things got really quiet, 
  then--the next I knew,", the Gaian turns around slowly, "that was William's 
  voice saying 'Thanks, puppies', and Rholeen--I didn't know she could scream 
  so much without even repeating herself", he assigns some awe to Rholeen, 
  before "And there was one set of wingbeats--a bird flew *in*, not out like 
  the others--it was William's pet bird. William, he was--", the Gaian twists 
  his fingers in the air, "--doing things like this 'nd making Rholeen hurt 
  bad without even touching her."
Drew stares dangerously for a moment, at no one present. "He deserved what he 
  got--after Hank 'n Sterling and me were done, he didn't--", he pauses, 
  "Exist? Not one bit--not his bird either, Kosh took care of the bird. It got 
  quiet again, then it got noisy--from everywhere, it was like an earthquake 
  started, the floor, the walls, the ceiling--everything was crumbling and 
  breaking, so we had to run for the stairs before they fell--and Brittany 
  didn't argue this time about the stairs."
Drew swings his arm in a circle, bringing it into a smaller circle. "When we 
  got out, there was the snake again, squeezing up 'gainst the mountain and 
  breaking it up--with us in there! We had to do some reminding of the snake 
  not to do that, at least to let us out first, and he finally let us, 'nd 
  even gave a ride back here."
Drew begins to walk off, his story about done, when he pauses, snapping his 
  fingers. "Oh, We got the egg."