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swordznsorcery Jun. 5th, 2013 21:43)
swordznsorcery Jun. 5th, 2013 21:43)http://lost-spook.livejournal.com/325603.html
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, any footnote expanded
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Characters: Original, the Raven King
Gen, c. 5600 words
The King Of Broken Places
It began as adventures so often do – with a storm. Filled with the fury of a fierce young spring determined to make its mark, it encircled the town and raced down every street, rattling windows and hurling roof slates into the road. Anxious to play its part, and unwilling to be drowned out by the wind and the rain, the thunder worked itself into a frenzy, and the lightning chased the roiling clouds across the sky, dancing to its own, erratic rhythm. It was a nightmare of a storm, and two of its observers were rather more aware of that than most.
Their names were Philip and Emily Cavendish, and they were twins, although two less alike twins it would be difficult to find. Having taken it upon themselves, in the long hours outside of the schoolroom, to explore the many secret passages and pathways of the world, they had been far from home when the storm had struck, and after a moment's delight at the oncoming spectacle, had fled like startled rabbits for some sort of cover. They had found it at the end of a rambling lane, lined with ash and elder and the remnants of towering stone walls; a house, long-forgotten and empty. It bore many broken windows, and the roof was at least half gone, but it seemed a better prospect than standing out in the wind and the rain. Hurrying inside with little consideration of actions and consequences, they found themselves in a vast and ruined entrance hall – and thus did they become the first visitors to Lockhampton Manor in some hundred and seventeen years.
"It's cold," said Emily, which was true enough, if not the most inspiring speech with which to begin a life-changing adventure. Philip, who liked to think of himself as much bigger and stronger than he really was, squared his shoulders and made an effort to look stoic.
"No it's not," he said, but the shiver of icy raindrops that were trickling down the inside of his shirt were inclined to disagree. His voice shuddered accordingly, and Emily, perhaps not unreasonably, thumped him on the arm.
"Liar. Let's get away from the door. There's a frightful draught here, and I'm wet through."
"Maybe there's a fireplace in one of the rooms," suggested Philip, and earned himself a piercing glare.
"I said that I was cold. I didn't say that I wanted to burn the house down." As oblivious as most sisters to her brother's attempts to be grown up, Emily led the way across the hall. "Anyway, by the time you've got a flame from rubbing two sticks together, the storm will probably be over. Let's just look for somewhere windproof. I'm sure this place can't be completely ruined."
"It's not ruined, it's wonderful." Following along after his sister, Philip tipped his head back to look up at the ceiling. Arched and magnificent, it had faded to an approximate white, and was decorated with carved wooden figures that erupted from the sides of the massive support beams that were curving across it. Dragons and knights chased each other from beam to beam, and in the centre of it all was a chandelier so gigantic that it seemed impossible for any ceiling to bear. The flames that had once given it life had been gone for years, and decay had done its part to lighten the rafters' great burden, but still there was some shine left in the gilt; some sparkle amid the dusty and cobwebbed glass. In unpredictable snatches it reflected pieces of the lightning as it raced past the lopsided door, throwing momentary, flickering shadows across the knights and the dragons. To an imaginative onlooker, it might almost have seemed as though the carved figures had come to life, although a more rational soul would no doubt have been assured by knowing better. But, then, a more rational soul would probably have been tucked up in bed, and as such would have missed the spectacle entirely.
"Not ruined?" Leaving the great hall for a living room that seemed almost as grand, Emily paused for a moment, the lofty wisdom of her twelve long years giving way momentarily to a smile. "No, perhaps not. Not entirely." The room in which she now found herself had some one and a half broken panes, and the curtains that still hung at either side of them swung to-and-fro in the draught. A squadron of brocaded bluebirds fluttered accordingly, and as she hurried over to draw them, from out in the overgrown garden a vast sea of bluebells and cowslips waved a windblown welcome. Philip joined her a moment later, and helped with the curtains.
"Who do you suppose it belongs to?" he asked, as they looked around the darkened room. Huge arm chairs, draped with cobwebs in place of dustsheets, dominated the centre of the floor, and from the walls arose strange and misshapen shadows. A closer inspection revealed crossed swords and native spears; a stuffed moose's head; a huge, moth-eaten owl on a tall, wooden pedestal; and a gargantuan grandfather clock, stuck at half-past six. There were great tears in the wallpaper as well, that created yet further odd shapes, fashioning themselves into crouching beasts for the benefit of any half-turned eye. Clapping the dust of the curtains from her hands, Emily declared the place to be free for claiming.
"And after all," she said, bending down to examine the fireplace, "it's not as though anybody else wants it, is it. It's been empty for centuries and centuries, I shouldn't wonder. Why shouldn't we have it? We can be the Lord and Lady of the manor. It's just a shame that there aren't any servants."
"We don't need servants," said Philip, with a touch of regret. "We haven't got anything for them to serve."
"We missed dinner again." Emily perched on the edge of the nearest chair, a little worried, despite her new enthusiasm for the place, that it might be on the verge of collapse. "There's going to be fearful trouble when we get home."
"Then let's not." Sitting cross-legged on the great, stone-flagged hearth, Philip leaned back once again to look up at the ceiling. There were no wooden rafters here, but all the same, for a brief moment, he could have sworn that he had seen a scurry of knights and dragons passing by. Confused, he blinked the image away. "Let's stay here. Like you said, it's not as though anybody else is using it. We could stay here forever, and I bet nobody ever finds us."
"Don't be silly." There was regret in Emily's voice, even in the midst of her scolding. "You're always hungry as it is. How would you feel after a few days without any food? Besides, it's not very warm in here, and there are sure to be colder times than this. If we were to light a fire, somebody would come looking."
"I'll bet there are vegetables growing somewhere in the garden," said Philip, undaunted. "Old houses always have vegetable gardens. And I can make a bow and some arrows, and shoot pigeons. And—"
"And what shall we do for water?" asked Emily. Philip glared.
"Well I'm staying," he said, and jumped immediately to his feet. Dust swirled about his shoes at the sudden movement, and a cavalcade of shadows jumped with him. Emily was quite sure that one small boy should not have so many shadows – but it was a strange place, and the lighting was not at all familiar. All the same, she stood up as well, not entirely sure that she wanted to be left alone.
"Where are you going?" she asked. He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, in a show of resolve that she knew well.
"I'm going to explore my castle," he announced, and headed towards the door. As he reached it, he stopped and looked back, doubt beginning to show itself in his face. "Are you coming?"
"Of course I am." She joined him, and together they set off down a long, panelled corridor, where the sounds of the storm were quite faint. Despite the lack of an obvious light source, the shadows were more numerous here, skulking in the corners where ceiling met wall, and sprawling lazily on the floor. One or two of them, spiky and particularly dark, seemed to twitch themselves out of the way as the twins walked past – but both Philip and Emily had decided quite independently of each other that they were not going to notice such things. It was probably all just a trick of the light anyway. What else could it be, in an empty, forgotten house, falling to ruin?
The first room that they came to was a lady's parlour, decided Emily. The furniture, beneath its veil of dust-drenched cobwebs, showed traces of a floral pattern in pink and white, and there were framed embroideries hanging on the walls. On a little coffee table in the middle of the floor was a small china dish, which held two ancient cotton reels, and a large, dead spider. It did not escape the notice of either twin that a good many of the shadows in the room were quite exactly spider-shaped. One or two of them, as though to emphasise the point, took it upon themselves to scuttle away into the available corners. Philip frowned.
"Emily... did you ever think much about shadows before?"
"No." She turned her back on the room, and headed back out into the corridor with a posture that clearly said: And I'm not starting now. Philip was rather inclined to agree.
The second room was a study, or had been once. The far wall was lined with dark wooden shelves, rising from floor to ceiling in great, dusty towers. The books were gone, but the purpose of the room remained obvious. It was a room that seemed to frown upon the twins, as though to make quite clear that visitors were not welcome. They didn't go in. Instead they carried on, coming at last to what could only have been a kitchen. It was brighter than the other rooms that they had seen, and the floor was an expanse of stone flags. Great cupboards and stout wooden shelves were everywhere, each with its accompaniment of cobwebs, dust and shadows. There were other things there too; resting on the highest shelves, and pressed between convenient outcroppings of cupboard, beam and wall, were birds' nests in their dozens, from the very old to the obviously still in use. A rustle of wings greeted the twins' arrival, and a thousand small, bright eyes peered down at the intrusion.
"They're only pigeons," said Emily quietly, in a voice that was rather less hale and hearty than she might have wished. Around them wings shook, and a tumble of feathers came down. Big ones and small ones; grey ones and brown ones and green ones and blue ones, and one that Philip saw for only a moment, that he thought was striped in red and gold. He could not be sure. Almost before the feathers hit the ground they were gone, snatched up by a scurry of mice and rats that erupted from the skirting, and carried them away beneath the ground.
"Maybe we should explore upstairs instead," suggested Philip. The thunder seemed to agree, choosing that moment to roar overhead so loudly that the house itself appeared to quake. The birds remained silent, but above them and around them flapped scores of shadows; a million ghost wings beating the air; a million sets of talons reaching out around the walls. The children did not see them. Startled by the thunder, and by the renewed beating of rain against the windows, they had fled. Left behind, deprived of their audience, the many shadows rose up, chasing each other around the walls, before coming to rest together in the centre of the ceiling. For a moment they hung there; one united, vast blackness in the shape of a giant raven; before, in the brief brilliance of a lightning bolt, they were gone. Huddled together in their nests, only the real birds remained.
The twins, meanwhile, had retraced their steps to the entrance hall; and whilst they might both have thought privately that leaving was the better idea, neither was prepared to say so out loud. The storm still raged, and they were in no hurry to go out into it, or back to the home that awaited them. So, standing close together, but determined not to give in to the desire to hold hands, they proceeded up the staircase. It seemed a solid enough affair, although there were holes in the banister, and the steps were given to much creaking. At the top of it there was a veritable curtain of cobwebs, which they pushed carefully aside.
"I'm not sure that I want to live here after all," said Philip, rather quietly. The admission, coming as and when it did, inspired Emily to give a little giggle.
"We're up here now. We might as well finish exploring." With a deep breath she stepped past the cobwebs, and onto the landing beyond. The upstairs was different to the downstairs, the corridor less grand, and the ceiling less high. Instead of wooden panelling, they were greeted by white-washed walls, greyed now, and given decoration here and there by long fingers of ivy, creeping in through compromised windows. The rooms were different too, smaller and more cosy, and devoid of furniture. The emptiness was almost welcoming, for it meant that there were no dust-swathed shapes, and fewer places for shadows to hide. Instead there were chunky, weathered floorboards, carpeted with encroaching ivy, and crooked windowsills wide enough to sit on. The storm was waiting for them though, chasing itself in and out of broken panes, and rattling the gutters. Emily stood in the doorway of one of the rooms, and gave a little sigh.
"It could be a very nice house," she said, somewhat sadly. "If the windows were replaced, and the ivy was cut back, and—"
"I like the ivy," said Philip, who in the absence of hovering shadows and curtains of cobwebs had recovered his spirits again. He pushed past his sister into the waiting bedroom, and kicked at the reaching green stems that had stretched themselves out across the floor. A sharp draught assailed them from a ruined window through which the ivy had forced itself, and through which the rain was now leaping in flurries. There were no curtains here, but the remaining light from outside was so dimmed by the ivy that it was almost as though some had been drawn already. His reflection blinked back at him on the glass, fractured by cracks, and heavily tinted with green.
"You're hopeless," Emily told him, not unkindly. "You've changed your mind about this place five times in as many minutes."
"It's more minutes than that." His reflection was looking back at her, dark eyes odd with ivy shadows. Beyond the window, lightning flashed, illuminating the cracks in the glass, and breaking his reflection into a dozen light-etched shards. "And I do know what I want; or rather, what I don't want. I don't want to go home."
"Neither do I." Staring at the window as she had been, she had been looking straight at the lightning, and the brightness of it lingered in her eyes. She blinked hard, several times, but the pattern of bright-edged pieces of glass, with brighter light beyond, remained. It hampered her vision, which was already not too good in the darkened room. "But I don't want to stay in a ruined house, either. It's cold up here, and downstairs is peculiar, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if it's haunted." She fell silent, still watching his face in the window. For a moment nothing happened, then she saw his reflection smile slightly, green lips against green glass. She smiled as well, relieved without quite knowing why. "Although of course I will stay. If you really want to."
"No, you're probably right. And somebody would be sure to find us eventually, and then there would be even more trouble than usual." He turned back to smile at her over his shoulder, his natural colouring briefly unusual after all the green. "But we'll wait out the storm. There's no sense in getting soaked as well as belted. Listen to it out there! It sounds as though the wind is trying to tear the roof off."
"What's left of it. I only wish we knew how solid it is."
"It hasn't caved in yet." He turned to look out of the window again, black eyes once more turned green – then bright, searing blue-white as the glass was lit up once again. Emily flinched at the force of the strike, certain that something in the garden had been hit; but even as she was blinking; even as she was turning her head away; she caught sight of something in the glass. Something standing alongside of her brother's reflection, and yet not mottled as he was in ivy shades. It was only for an instant, for her eyes had closed almost immediately, but she was quite sure that she had seen a man.
Breathless, thinking of ghosts or worse, she whirled about. Behind her was the doorway and the corridor, both impossibly dark now to eyes that were filled with lightning. She rubbed at them, but as before the lightning remained, sharp streaks hampering her vision. When she heard a footstep she spun about to face it, but it was only Philip. His dark eyes were wide, and his face rather more pale than usual.
"Did you see it? Him?" Philip was looking this way and that, the image of excitement and fear. "Was it a ghost? Maybe it's the owner of the house. Maybe—"
"He's still there." Emily had turned back to the window, half lit now by the smouldering ruin of a twisted apple tree in the garden. The figure was there again, although to have been so reflected, he would have to have been standing between the twins and the glass. He was watching them, with a mocking smile and a self-assured gleam in his very dark eyes. Once it was clear that he had their attention, he bent suddenly, in a deep and extravagant bow. A second later, as he straightened up again, Emily felt a pair of hands upon her shoulders.
"Leave us alone!" She pulled free, turning about with half a mind to fight, even if it was folly to fight with a ghost. Philip had clearly had the same thought, for his fists were up and ready. Their ghost, however, made no move to attack.
"So what do we have here?" He was not a tall man, and his build was slight and unexceptional, but he held himself nonetheless like a man who was used to attention. His suit was black and quite ordinary, not at all as dated as a ghost's might have been, and he bore no weapons, or anything else that might suggest he meant them harm. Perhaps the only extraordinary thing about him, besides his impossible reflection, was his hair. It was black as well, and quite straight, and it hung around his shoulders flowing free. Emily did not think that she had ever seen a man with such long hair.
"Please sir," said Philip, who had not yet lowered his fists, which rather ruined his attempt to be polite. "We were sheltering from the rain. Is this your house?"
"Of course it's my house. How could it not be? And I've heard the pair of you criticising it. You object to a few cracks and holes, I suppose. They don't teach you children anything these days."
"We didn't mean any harm," said Emily, a bit affronted. It hardly seemed fair for a man to appear unexpectedly in a window, and then start criticising their education. Dark eyes flared at her, bright in the shadows of the growing night, and as haughty as could be.
"Harm or not, you're still here." He tipped his head on one side, looking from one to the other of them. "And you're a strange pair. One dark, one light." The observation made him smile, and with a pale, long-fingered hand, he gestured to them in turn. "The boy is as dark as a shadow, but the girl has flames in her hair. Shadow and fire; that's quite the combination. A pretty pair as well, and neither a coward. I might consider taking you at that."
"Taking us?" Philip reacted faster than Emily, perhaps because his fists were still ready, or perhaps because he was a little closer. In the event it did him no good. Turning to the indignant boy with a lazy manoeuvre, the new arrival caught one of the clenched fists, and pulled with the barest of efforts. In a trice Philip was his prisoner, held close against his side.
"Leave him alone!" Emily rushed forward, but her feet, for all her desperation, refused to obey her. Though her fists flailed wildly at the air, she could move no closer to the man, or to her imprisoned brother. Philip struggled, but clearly he could move no better than she.
"Yes, shadow and fire." The man tipped Philip's head back, clearly taking a better look at his prize. "I always did have a liking for shadow, but flame is often more trouble than it's worth. And you, boy, you were a little kinder to my old house. You I'll take. There's always room for a shadow child in my kingdom, especially one with some fight in him. The girl can stay behind."
"Leave him alone!" Emily knew now that she had been bewitched, and she also had an idea by whom. She did not know the man's name, but if he was not a ghost, then she could think of no other explanation, for she was a sensible child, and she read a great deal. Something about him was ringing loud bells in her memory. Pale skinned and dark eyed, with long hair and none too courtly a manner. Magical powers at his disposal. Arrogance far greater than his stature. The thought made her blood run cold, and she renewed her efforts to move.
"Philip, you must fight him! He's a faery! He'll take you away, and you'll never be heard of again!"
"Too late." With a smile that made his face seem almost beautiful, the man waved his free hand in the air. For a second there was a glow, and then there was nothing in the room but darkness. Desperate, Emily turned as far as she was able, driven by instinct more than anything else. There in the window was the man, Philip still struggling in his grip, reduced to nothing but a reflection. A second later that had gone too. The window showed her nothing but the ruined apple tree, and the ivy that hemmed her in. She looked down. It was the ivy that had captured her, the long tendrils that had grown in to carpet the floor having wrapped themselves around her ankles, holding her fast. She kicked and tore herself free, rushing over to the window.
"Bring him back!" she screamed, her fists beating on the glass. "Bring him back!" Thunder rumbled in answer, and the wind howled around the side of the house. She fancied that it brought with it the sound of a boy's voice calling her name, but it was impossible to be sure. Between the ferocity of the storm, and the creaking of the great eaves, a faint cry did not stand a chance.
"Philip!" Perhaps he could hear her anyway. Perhaps, if he could hear her, he could find his way back. She shouted again, hammering harder on the window, but it was old and fragile, and cracked too badly by the ivy. With a dull clatter the pane fell free, her fists pushing it past the tangle of ivy, so that it fell down into the garden and into the rain. She leaned out, desperate, staring down to where the glass was just visible in the long grass – three shards, lying in a cock-eyed circle, and each reflecting something different. One showed her her own face, staring back through a wall of raindrops; one showed the moon, bright between two dark banks of cloud; and one showed a small boy, almost as dark as the young night. She knew then that she had not lost; not yet. She had to fight, if she was ever to see her brother again.
"Bring him back!" Heedless of the danger from the glass, she pounded on another pane, cracking it and splintering the wooden frame. "Bring him back or I'll break this house into pieces!"
"And that will help?" The voice was a flutter of feathers blowing out of the darkness; his shape a greater darkness that formed itself out of the black. "Just like I said, they don't teach you anything these days. All ruined buildings belong to the Raven King, little fire girl. The more the ruin, the more the magic. Don't you know that?"
"The Raven King?" It was a title that stirred something in the back of her mind; the memory of a memory, searching for itself. "That's you?"
"At your service." He bowed again, like before, with equal parts courtesy and teasing. "Ruler that was, and may be again; and, in certain quarters, still is, and always will be."
"And stealer of children." She was afraid, as she had not been when he had stood near her before. She had thought him a ghost to begin with; a shadow of a man. Now she knew that he was very much more. He smiled tautly.
"And why not? The boy said himself that he didn't want to go home, and quite right too. I like him. I like his spirit. Even now he's hammering on the gates of Faerie, looking for a way back; and to a place that he doesn't even want to go back to."
"Then let him go." There was a quaver in her voice that she couldn't control, but she told herself that it was due to desperation rather than fear. "You're a faery. Surely you can have whatever you want?"
"I'm no faery. I'm as human as you are." He reached out a pale hand, brushing it gently against the angry red of her hair. "Such fire. Perhaps I should take you instead."
"Take me where?" She had read stories of Faerie; of monsters and evil magicks; of children stolen away as slaves for terrible beasts. The Raven King smiled.
"To my castle, perhaps. To a place of towers and turrets, and cobwebs and shadow. Of..." he gestured vaguely in the air... "swords and owls and bats and peacocks. And since today is Tuesday, I think there should be unicorns."
"You're mocking me."
"Of course I'm mocking you. I'm your king, and you don't even know it. So what will it be? Shall I release the boy and take you in his place?"
"Yes." She screwed her eyes up tight, wondering if it hurt to travel to another world, but nothing seemed to happen. Instead the Raven King laughed.
"No deal. I like the boy. He fits, as though Faerie were made for him; or he was made for Faerie. Perhaps you both were. I shall take you both, I think."
"But that's not fair." She had hoped to save her brother, not to condemn the both of them. The Raven King, however, seemed to think it more than fair enough. He shrugged, as though the fate of two small children was of no matter to him – and in that instant the house was gone. In its place was a forest, in which it seemed that every tree was covered not in leaves but in feathers. Black feathers, that rose up with a mighty, conglomerated cry. The wind produced by so many beating wings made the Raven King's hair flutter and sway, and blow about his head like a crown.
"Not fair?" he echoed, and shrugged once again; the gesture of a king oblivious to the suffering of a peasant. "If you were not fair, you would not be here. We'll meet again, little fire girl. Until then, beware of blackthorn bushes and pools of dark water. The rest of the land is harmless enough, if you intend no harm to it."
"But what about Philip? I—" But it was too late. Without a sound or a gesture, he was gone. Emily stood alone in the forest, surrounded on all sides by trees, and above by a great cloud of ravens. They waved their wings, signalling to each other, or perhaps to her; then, as one they rose higher and higher into the air. She felt abandoned, and terribly alone; so as the birds began to fly away, she hurried after them, with not the slightest idea of what else to do. They were heading east, or so she assumed, towards the sun as it began to rise. It had still been late evening in the ruined house. It was altogether far too confusing.
She had no idea how long she walked. It seemed a long time, but who could tell, when it was morning in the middle of the night? Eventually, just as she was beginning to tire, she realised that the trees were thinning out. She emerged from the remnants of the forest onto a gentle hillside, looking down into a wide, green valley. There was a house there, small and white-washed, with a roof of willow thatch, and a plume of smoke rising out of its chimney. The garden was a tangle of colour, and a stream wound its way past the gate. A small figure stood at the water's edge, and at the sight of Emily, let out a great yell, and began to run towards her.
"Emily! You came! I was afraid that..." Philip trailed off, looking unsure of himself. "But that was foolish of me. Of course you came. We could never leave each other behind."
"But where did I come?" she asked. She was still expecting monsters. A picturesque cottage on the edge of a wood hardly seemed the stuff of folklore nightmares.
"Home? It feels a bit like home, I think. Or how I should like for home to feel, anyway." Philip began to lead the way back to the cottage, whilst overhead the ravens whirled and dived. Emily was quite certain that she could hear them laughing.
"But this is Faerie. There must be a catch. There must be some darkness somewhere. We can't trust a man who steals people."
"Well of course not." With a little smile, her brother slipped his hand into hers. "But there are monsters in our world too. Why should we want to be there any more than here?"
"Because we don't really know where here is! Or what's here, or why we're here, or what's expected of us. And because we didn't choose to be here." It seemed a great many reasons, to her at least. Philip frowned at her words, and then pulled her around to face him.
"Did we choose to be there either? And for that matter, did anybody ever want us to be there?"
"Well, no, but..." That hardly seemed the point. Kidnap was kidnap after all, and it was surely their duty to escape? All the same, she could not deny that there was a certain logic to his words. "Perhaps you're right, but it all seems far too strange to me. We have no way of knowing what's on the other side of that wood, and we have no idea what might come out of it. You've read the same books that I have. We've been stolen away to Faerie, Philip. It's not the same as exploring Richmond."
"I know." He began to lead the way towards the cottage again, hand still holding onto hers. "But I'm a lot less scared now that we're together again. And there's no Aunt Agatha waiting in that house. Think of that."
"I am." But was that enough? After the dreadful moments of separation, perhaps their reunion was all that truly mattered; and she couldn't deny that, if one had to be stolen away, there were a good deal worse places to be taken to. The early sun had a welcoming warmth to it, as it slid up into the sky. The stream whispered a welcome of its own, but the birds overhead still seemed to be laughing. What to trust? How to be sure of anything in a world that might be a lie? Philip squeezed her hand, reminding her of the one thing that she could be sure of, always.
"And if there are monsters then we'll fight them together," he told her, and for all its childlike simplicity, it seemed to make perfect sense. They didn't entirely know where they were – they certainly had no idea what to expect of this new day. But they had hoped never to go home, and perhaps somebody had heard them. Perhaps they should be grateful to their abductor. If she was sure of nothing else on this most peculiar of mornings, Emily knew that they would find out soon enough.
------------------------------
NB: This refers to the footnote on pg 268, which states that all ruined buildings belong to the Raven King. Also in part to the note on pg 36, which says that he sometimes takes "fair people" to live with him in his own land.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, any footnote expanded
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Characters: Original, the Raven King
Gen, c. 5600 words
It began as adventures so often do – with a storm. Filled with the fury of a fierce young spring determined to make its mark, it encircled the town and raced down every street, rattling windows and hurling roof slates into the road. Anxious to play its part, and unwilling to be drowned out by the wind and the rain, the thunder worked itself into a frenzy, and the lightning chased the roiling clouds across the sky, dancing to its own, erratic rhythm. It was a nightmare of a storm, and two of its observers were rather more aware of that than most.
Their names were Philip and Emily Cavendish, and they were twins, although two less alike twins it would be difficult to find. Having taken it upon themselves, in the long hours outside of the schoolroom, to explore the many secret passages and pathways of the world, they had been far from home when the storm had struck, and after a moment's delight at the oncoming spectacle, had fled like startled rabbits for some sort of cover. They had found it at the end of a rambling lane, lined with ash and elder and the remnants of towering stone walls; a house, long-forgotten and empty. It bore many broken windows, and the roof was at least half gone, but it seemed a better prospect than standing out in the wind and the rain. Hurrying inside with little consideration of actions and consequences, they found themselves in a vast and ruined entrance hall – and thus did they become the first visitors to Lockhampton Manor in some hundred and seventeen years.
"It's cold," said Emily, which was true enough, if not the most inspiring speech with which to begin a life-changing adventure. Philip, who liked to think of himself as much bigger and stronger than he really was, squared his shoulders and made an effort to look stoic.
"No it's not," he said, but the shiver of icy raindrops that were trickling down the inside of his shirt were inclined to disagree. His voice shuddered accordingly, and Emily, perhaps not unreasonably, thumped him on the arm.
"Liar. Let's get away from the door. There's a frightful draught here, and I'm wet through."
"Maybe there's a fireplace in one of the rooms," suggested Philip, and earned himself a piercing glare.
"I said that I was cold. I didn't say that I wanted to burn the house down." As oblivious as most sisters to her brother's attempts to be grown up, Emily led the way across the hall. "Anyway, by the time you've got a flame from rubbing two sticks together, the storm will probably be over. Let's just look for somewhere windproof. I'm sure this place can't be completely ruined."
"It's not ruined, it's wonderful." Following along after his sister, Philip tipped his head back to look up at the ceiling. Arched and magnificent, it had faded to an approximate white, and was decorated with carved wooden figures that erupted from the sides of the massive support beams that were curving across it. Dragons and knights chased each other from beam to beam, and in the centre of it all was a chandelier so gigantic that it seemed impossible for any ceiling to bear. The flames that had once given it life had been gone for years, and decay had done its part to lighten the rafters' great burden, but still there was some shine left in the gilt; some sparkle amid the dusty and cobwebbed glass. In unpredictable snatches it reflected pieces of the lightning as it raced past the lopsided door, throwing momentary, flickering shadows across the knights and the dragons. To an imaginative onlooker, it might almost have seemed as though the carved figures had come to life, although a more rational soul would no doubt have been assured by knowing better. But, then, a more rational soul would probably have been tucked up in bed, and as such would have missed the spectacle entirely.
"Not ruined?" Leaving the great hall for a living room that seemed almost as grand, Emily paused for a moment, the lofty wisdom of her twelve long years giving way momentarily to a smile. "No, perhaps not. Not entirely." The room in which she now found herself had some one and a half broken panes, and the curtains that still hung at either side of them swung to-and-fro in the draught. A squadron of brocaded bluebirds fluttered accordingly, and as she hurried over to draw them, from out in the overgrown garden a vast sea of bluebells and cowslips waved a windblown welcome. Philip joined her a moment later, and helped with the curtains.
"Who do you suppose it belongs to?" he asked, as they looked around the darkened room. Huge arm chairs, draped with cobwebs in place of dustsheets, dominated the centre of the floor, and from the walls arose strange and misshapen shadows. A closer inspection revealed crossed swords and native spears; a stuffed moose's head; a huge, moth-eaten owl on a tall, wooden pedestal; and a gargantuan grandfather clock, stuck at half-past six. There were great tears in the wallpaper as well, that created yet further odd shapes, fashioning themselves into crouching beasts for the benefit of any half-turned eye. Clapping the dust of the curtains from her hands, Emily declared the place to be free for claiming.
"And after all," she said, bending down to examine the fireplace, "it's not as though anybody else wants it, is it. It's been empty for centuries and centuries, I shouldn't wonder. Why shouldn't we have it? We can be the Lord and Lady of the manor. It's just a shame that there aren't any servants."
"We don't need servants," said Philip, with a touch of regret. "We haven't got anything for them to serve."
"We missed dinner again." Emily perched on the edge of the nearest chair, a little worried, despite her new enthusiasm for the place, that it might be on the verge of collapse. "There's going to be fearful trouble when we get home."
"Then let's not." Sitting cross-legged on the great, stone-flagged hearth, Philip leaned back once again to look up at the ceiling. There were no wooden rafters here, but all the same, for a brief moment, he could have sworn that he had seen a scurry of knights and dragons passing by. Confused, he blinked the image away. "Let's stay here. Like you said, it's not as though anybody else is using it. We could stay here forever, and I bet nobody ever finds us."
"Don't be silly." There was regret in Emily's voice, even in the midst of her scolding. "You're always hungry as it is. How would you feel after a few days without any food? Besides, it's not very warm in here, and there are sure to be colder times than this. If we were to light a fire, somebody would come looking."
"I'll bet there are vegetables growing somewhere in the garden," said Philip, undaunted. "Old houses always have vegetable gardens. And I can make a bow and some arrows, and shoot pigeons. And—"
"And what shall we do for water?" asked Emily. Philip glared.
"Well I'm staying," he said, and jumped immediately to his feet. Dust swirled about his shoes at the sudden movement, and a cavalcade of shadows jumped with him. Emily was quite sure that one small boy should not have so many shadows – but it was a strange place, and the lighting was not at all familiar. All the same, she stood up as well, not entirely sure that she wanted to be left alone.
"Where are you going?" she asked. He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, in a show of resolve that she knew well.
"I'm going to explore my castle," he announced, and headed towards the door. As he reached it, he stopped and looked back, doubt beginning to show itself in his face. "Are you coming?"
"Of course I am." She joined him, and together they set off down a long, panelled corridor, where the sounds of the storm were quite faint. Despite the lack of an obvious light source, the shadows were more numerous here, skulking in the corners where ceiling met wall, and sprawling lazily on the floor. One or two of them, spiky and particularly dark, seemed to twitch themselves out of the way as the twins walked past – but both Philip and Emily had decided quite independently of each other that they were not going to notice such things. It was probably all just a trick of the light anyway. What else could it be, in an empty, forgotten house, falling to ruin?
The first room that they came to was a lady's parlour, decided Emily. The furniture, beneath its veil of dust-drenched cobwebs, showed traces of a floral pattern in pink and white, and there were framed embroideries hanging on the walls. On a little coffee table in the middle of the floor was a small china dish, which held two ancient cotton reels, and a large, dead spider. It did not escape the notice of either twin that a good many of the shadows in the room were quite exactly spider-shaped. One or two of them, as though to emphasise the point, took it upon themselves to scuttle away into the available corners. Philip frowned.
"Emily... did you ever think much about shadows before?"
"No." She turned her back on the room, and headed back out into the corridor with a posture that clearly said: And I'm not starting now. Philip was rather inclined to agree.
The second room was a study, or had been once. The far wall was lined with dark wooden shelves, rising from floor to ceiling in great, dusty towers. The books were gone, but the purpose of the room remained obvious. It was a room that seemed to frown upon the twins, as though to make quite clear that visitors were not welcome. They didn't go in. Instead they carried on, coming at last to what could only have been a kitchen. It was brighter than the other rooms that they had seen, and the floor was an expanse of stone flags. Great cupboards and stout wooden shelves were everywhere, each with its accompaniment of cobwebs, dust and shadows. There were other things there too; resting on the highest shelves, and pressed between convenient outcroppings of cupboard, beam and wall, were birds' nests in their dozens, from the very old to the obviously still in use. A rustle of wings greeted the twins' arrival, and a thousand small, bright eyes peered down at the intrusion.
"They're only pigeons," said Emily quietly, in a voice that was rather less hale and hearty than she might have wished. Around them wings shook, and a tumble of feathers came down. Big ones and small ones; grey ones and brown ones and green ones and blue ones, and one that Philip saw for only a moment, that he thought was striped in red and gold. He could not be sure. Almost before the feathers hit the ground they were gone, snatched up by a scurry of mice and rats that erupted from the skirting, and carried them away beneath the ground.
"Maybe we should explore upstairs instead," suggested Philip. The thunder seemed to agree, choosing that moment to roar overhead so loudly that the house itself appeared to quake. The birds remained silent, but above them and around them flapped scores of shadows; a million ghost wings beating the air; a million sets of talons reaching out around the walls. The children did not see them. Startled by the thunder, and by the renewed beating of rain against the windows, they had fled. Left behind, deprived of their audience, the many shadows rose up, chasing each other around the walls, before coming to rest together in the centre of the ceiling. For a moment they hung there; one united, vast blackness in the shape of a giant raven; before, in the brief brilliance of a lightning bolt, they were gone. Huddled together in their nests, only the real birds remained.
The twins, meanwhile, had retraced their steps to the entrance hall; and whilst they might both have thought privately that leaving was the better idea, neither was prepared to say so out loud. The storm still raged, and they were in no hurry to go out into it, or back to the home that awaited them. So, standing close together, but determined not to give in to the desire to hold hands, they proceeded up the staircase. It seemed a solid enough affair, although there were holes in the banister, and the steps were given to much creaking. At the top of it there was a veritable curtain of cobwebs, which they pushed carefully aside.
"I'm not sure that I want to live here after all," said Philip, rather quietly. The admission, coming as and when it did, inspired Emily to give a little giggle.
"We're up here now. We might as well finish exploring." With a deep breath she stepped past the cobwebs, and onto the landing beyond. The upstairs was different to the downstairs, the corridor less grand, and the ceiling less high. Instead of wooden panelling, they were greeted by white-washed walls, greyed now, and given decoration here and there by long fingers of ivy, creeping in through compromised windows. The rooms were different too, smaller and more cosy, and devoid of furniture. The emptiness was almost welcoming, for it meant that there were no dust-swathed shapes, and fewer places for shadows to hide. Instead there were chunky, weathered floorboards, carpeted with encroaching ivy, and crooked windowsills wide enough to sit on. The storm was waiting for them though, chasing itself in and out of broken panes, and rattling the gutters. Emily stood in the doorway of one of the rooms, and gave a little sigh.
"It could be a very nice house," she said, somewhat sadly. "If the windows were replaced, and the ivy was cut back, and—"
"I like the ivy," said Philip, who in the absence of hovering shadows and curtains of cobwebs had recovered his spirits again. He pushed past his sister into the waiting bedroom, and kicked at the reaching green stems that had stretched themselves out across the floor. A sharp draught assailed them from a ruined window through which the ivy had forced itself, and through which the rain was now leaping in flurries. There were no curtains here, but the remaining light from outside was so dimmed by the ivy that it was almost as though some had been drawn already. His reflection blinked back at him on the glass, fractured by cracks, and heavily tinted with green.
"You're hopeless," Emily told him, not unkindly. "You've changed your mind about this place five times in as many minutes."
"It's more minutes than that." His reflection was looking back at her, dark eyes odd with ivy shadows. Beyond the window, lightning flashed, illuminating the cracks in the glass, and breaking his reflection into a dozen light-etched shards. "And I do know what I want; or rather, what I don't want. I don't want to go home."
"Neither do I." Staring at the window as she had been, she had been looking straight at the lightning, and the brightness of it lingered in her eyes. She blinked hard, several times, but the pattern of bright-edged pieces of glass, with brighter light beyond, remained. It hampered her vision, which was already not too good in the darkened room. "But I don't want to stay in a ruined house, either. It's cold up here, and downstairs is peculiar, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if it's haunted." She fell silent, still watching his face in the window. For a moment nothing happened, then she saw his reflection smile slightly, green lips against green glass. She smiled as well, relieved without quite knowing why. "Although of course I will stay. If you really want to."
"No, you're probably right. And somebody would be sure to find us eventually, and then there would be even more trouble than usual." He turned back to smile at her over his shoulder, his natural colouring briefly unusual after all the green. "But we'll wait out the storm. There's no sense in getting soaked as well as belted. Listen to it out there! It sounds as though the wind is trying to tear the roof off."
"What's left of it. I only wish we knew how solid it is."
"It hasn't caved in yet." He turned to look out of the window again, black eyes once more turned green – then bright, searing blue-white as the glass was lit up once again. Emily flinched at the force of the strike, certain that something in the garden had been hit; but even as she was blinking; even as she was turning her head away; she caught sight of something in the glass. Something standing alongside of her brother's reflection, and yet not mottled as he was in ivy shades. It was only for an instant, for her eyes had closed almost immediately, but she was quite sure that she had seen a man.
Breathless, thinking of ghosts or worse, she whirled about. Behind her was the doorway and the corridor, both impossibly dark now to eyes that were filled with lightning. She rubbed at them, but as before the lightning remained, sharp streaks hampering her vision. When she heard a footstep she spun about to face it, but it was only Philip. His dark eyes were wide, and his face rather more pale than usual.
"Did you see it? Him?" Philip was looking this way and that, the image of excitement and fear. "Was it a ghost? Maybe it's the owner of the house. Maybe—"
"He's still there." Emily had turned back to the window, half lit now by the smouldering ruin of a twisted apple tree in the garden. The figure was there again, although to have been so reflected, he would have to have been standing between the twins and the glass. He was watching them, with a mocking smile and a self-assured gleam in his very dark eyes. Once it was clear that he had their attention, he bent suddenly, in a deep and extravagant bow. A second later, as he straightened up again, Emily felt a pair of hands upon her shoulders.
"Leave us alone!" She pulled free, turning about with half a mind to fight, even if it was folly to fight with a ghost. Philip had clearly had the same thought, for his fists were up and ready. Their ghost, however, made no move to attack.
"So what do we have here?" He was not a tall man, and his build was slight and unexceptional, but he held himself nonetheless like a man who was used to attention. His suit was black and quite ordinary, not at all as dated as a ghost's might have been, and he bore no weapons, or anything else that might suggest he meant them harm. Perhaps the only extraordinary thing about him, besides his impossible reflection, was his hair. It was black as well, and quite straight, and it hung around his shoulders flowing free. Emily did not think that she had ever seen a man with such long hair.
"Please sir," said Philip, who had not yet lowered his fists, which rather ruined his attempt to be polite. "We were sheltering from the rain. Is this your house?"
"Of course it's my house. How could it not be? And I've heard the pair of you criticising it. You object to a few cracks and holes, I suppose. They don't teach you children anything these days."
"We didn't mean any harm," said Emily, a bit affronted. It hardly seemed fair for a man to appear unexpectedly in a window, and then start criticising their education. Dark eyes flared at her, bright in the shadows of the growing night, and as haughty as could be.
"Harm or not, you're still here." He tipped his head on one side, looking from one to the other of them. "And you're a strange pair. One dark, one light." The observation made him smile, and with a pale, long-fingered hand, he gestured to them in turn. "The boy is as dark as a shadow, but the girl has flames in her hair. Shadow and fire; that's quite the combination. A pretty pair as well, and neither a coward. I might consider taking you at that."
"Taking us?" Philip reacted faster than Emily, perhaps because his fists were still ready, or perhaps because he was a little closer. In the event it did him no good. Turning to the indignant boy with a lazy manoeuvre, the new arrival caught one of the clenched fists, and pulled with the barest of efforts. In a trice Philip was his prisoner, held close against his side.
"Leave him alone!" Emily rushed forward, but her feet, for all her desperation, refused to obey her. Though her fists flailed wildly at the air, she could move no closer to the man, or to her imprisoned brother. Philip struggled, but clearly he could move no better than she.
"Yes, shadow and fire." The man tipped Philip's head back, clearly taking a better look at his prize. "I always did have a liking for shadow, but flame is often more trouble than it's worth. And you, boy, you were a little kinder to my old house. You I'll take. There's always room for a shadow child in my kingdom, especially one with some fight in him. The girl can stay behind."
"Leave him alone!" Emily knew now that she had been bewitched, and she also had an idea by whom. She did not know the man's name, but if he was not a ghost, then she could think of no other explanation, for she was a sensible child, and she read a great deal. Something about him was ringing loud bells in her memory. Pale skinned and dark eyed, with long hair and none too courtly a manner. Magical powers at his disposal. Arrogance far greater than his stature. The thought made her blood run cold, and she renewed her efforts to move.
"Philip, you must fight him! He's a faery! He'll take you away, and you'll never be heard of again!"
"Too late." With a smile that made his face seem almost beautiful, the man waved his free hand in the air. For a second there was a glow, and then there was nothing in the room but darkness. Desperate, Emily turned as far as she was able, driven by instinct more than anything else. There in the window was the man, Philip still struggling in his grip, reduced to nothing but a reflection. A second later that had gone too. The window showed her nothing but the ruined apple tree, and the ivy that hemmed her in. She looked down. It was the ivy that had captured her, the long tendrils that had grown in to carpet the floor having wrapped themselves around her ankles, holding her fast. She kicked and tore herself free, rushing over to the window.
"Bring him back!" she screamed, her fists beating on the glass. "Bring him back!" Thunder rumbled in answer, and the wind howled around the side of the house. She fancied that it brought with it the sound of a boy's voice calling her name, but it was impossible to be sure. Between the ferocity of the storm, and the creaking of the great eaves, a faint cry did not stand a chance.
"Philip!" Perhaps he could hear her anyway. Perhaps, if he could hear her, he could find his way back. She shouted again, hammering harder on the window, but it was old and fragile, and cracked too badly by the ivy. With a dull clatter the pane fell free, her fists pushing it past the tangle of ivy, so that it fell down into the garden and into the rain. She leaned out, desperate, staring down to where the glass was just visible in the long grass – three shards, lying in a cock-eyed circle, and each reflecting something different. One showed her her own face, staring back through a wall of raindrops; one showed the moon, bright between two dark banks of cloud; and one showed a small boy, almost as dark as the young night. She knew then that she had not lost; not yet. She had to fight, if she was ever to see her brother again.
"Bring him back!" Heedless of the danger from the glass, she pounded on another pane, cracking it and splintering the wooden frame. "Bring him back or I'll break this house into pieces!"
"And that will help?" The voice was a flutter of feathers blowing out of the darkness; his shape a greater darkness that formed itself out of the black. "Just like I said, they don't teach you anything these days. All ruined buildings belong to the Raven King, little fire girl. The more the ruin, the more the magic. Don't you know that?"
"The Raven King?" It was a title that stirred something in the back of her mind; the memory of a memory, searching for itself. "That's you?"
"At your service." He bowed again, like before, with equal parts courtesy and teasing. "Ruler that was, and may be again; and, in certain quarters, still is, and always will be."
"And stealer of children." She was afraid, as she had not been when he had stood near her before. She had thought him a ghost to begin with; a shadow of a man. Now she knew that he was very much more. He smiled tautly.
"And why not? The boy said himself that he didn't want to go home, and quite right too. I like him. I like his spirit. Even now he's hammering on the gates of Faerie, looking for a way back; and to a place that he doesn't even want to go back to."
"Then let him go." There was a quaver in her voice that she couldn't control, but she told herself that it was due to desperation rather than fear. "You're a faery. Surely you can have whatever you want?"
"I'm no faery. I'm as human as you are." He reached out a pale hand, brushing it gently against the angry red of her hair. "Such fire. Perhaps I should take you instead."
"Take me where?" She had read stories of Faerie; of monsters and evil magicks; of children stolen away as slaves for terrible beasts. The Raven King smiled.
"To my castle, perhaps. To a place of towers and turrets, and cobwebs and shadow. Of..." he gestured vaguely in the air... "swords and owls and bats and peacocks. And since today is Tuesday, I think there should be unicorns."
"You're mocking me."
"Of course I'm mocking you. I'm your king, and you don't even know it. So what will it be? Shall I release the boy and take you in his place?"
"Yes." She screwed her eyes up tight, wondering if it hurt to travel to another world, but nothing seemed to happen. Instead the Raven King laughed.
"No deal. I like the boy. He fits, as though Faerie were made for him; or he was made for Faerie. Perhaps you both were. I shall take you both, I think."
"But that's not fair." She had hoped to save her brother, not to condemn the both of them. The Raven King, however, seemed to think it more than fair enough. He shrugged, as though the fate of two small children was of no matter to him – and in that instant the house was gone. In its place was a forest, in which it seemed that every tree was covered not in leaves but in feathers. Black feathers, that rose up with a mighty, conglomerated cry. The wind produced by so many beating wings made the Raven King's hair flutter and sway, and blow about his head like a crown.
"Not fair?" he echoed, and shrugged once again; the gesture of a king oblivious to the suffering of a peasant. "If you were not fair, you would not be here. We'll meet again, little fire girl. Until then, beware of blackthorn bushes and pools of dark water. The rest of the land is harmless enough, if you intend no harm to it."
"But what about Philip? I—" But it was too late. Without a sound or a gesture, he was gone. Emily stood alone in the forest, surrounded on all sides by trees, and above by a great cloud of ravens. They waved their wings, signalling to each other, or perhaps to her; then, as one they rose higher and higher into the air. She felt abandoned, and terribly alone; so as the birds began to fly away, she hurried after them, with not the slightest idea of what else to do. They were heading east, or so she assumed, towards the sun as it began to rise. It had still been late evening in the ruined house. It was altogether far too confusing.
She had no idea how long she walked. It seemed a long time, but who could tell, when it was morning in the middle of the night? Eventually, just as she was beginning to tire, she realised that the trees were thinning out. She emerged from the remnants of the forest onto a gentle hillside, looking down into a wide, green valley. There was a house there, small and white-washed, with a roof of willow thatch, and a plume of smoke rising out of its chimney. The garden was a tangle of colour, and a stream wound its way past the gate. A small figure stood at the water's edge, and at the sight of Emily, let out a great yell, and began to run towards her.
"Emily! You came! I was afraid that..." Philip trailed off, looking unsure of himself. "But that was foolish of me. Of course you came. We could never leave each other behind."
"But where did I come?" she asked. She was still expecting monsters. A picturesque cottage on the edge of a wood hardly seemed the stuff of folklore nightmares.
"Home? It feels a bit like home, I think. Or how I should like for home to feel, anyway." Philip began to lead the way back to the cottage, whilst overhead the ravens whirled and dived. Emily was quite certain that she could hear them laughing.
"But this is Faerie. There must be a catch. There must be some darkness somewhere. We can't trust a man who steals people."
"Well of course not." With a little smile, her brother slipped his hand into hers. "But there are monsters in our world too. Why should we want to be there any more than here?"
"Because we don't really know where here is! Or what's here, or why we're here, or what's expected of us. And because we didn't choose to be here." It seemed a great many reasons, to her at least. Philip frowned at her words, and then pulled her around to face him.
"Did we choose to be there either? And for that matter, did anybody ever want us to be there?"
"Well, no, but..." That hardly seemed the point. Kidnap was kidnap after all, and it was surely their duty to escape? All the same, she could not deny that there was a certain logic to his words. "Perhaps you're right, but it all seems far too strange to me. We have no way of knowing what's on the other side of that wood, and we have no idea what might come out of it. You've read the same books that I have. We've been stolen away to Faerie, Philip. It's not the same as exploring Richmond."
"I know." He began to lead the way towards the cottage again, hand still holding onto hers. "But I'm a lot less scared now that we're together again. And there's no Aunt Agatha waiting in that house. Think of that."
"I am." But was that enough? After the dreadful moments of separation, perhaps their reunion was all that truly mattered; and she couldn't deny that, if one had to be stolen away, there were a good deal worse places to be taken to. The early sun had a welcoming warmth to it, as it slid up into the sky. The stream whispered a welcome of its own, but the birds overhead still seemed to be laughing. What to trust? How to be sure of anything in a world that might be a lie? Philip squeezed her hand, reminding her of the one thing that she could be sure of, always.
"And if there are monsters then we'll fight them together," he told her, and for all its childlike simplicity, it seemed to make perfect sense. They didn't entirely know where they were – they certainly had no idea what to expect of this new day. But they had hoped never to go home, and perhaps somebody had heard them. Perhaps they should be grateful to their abductor. If she was sure of nothing else on this most peculiar of mornings, Emily knew that they would find out soon enough.
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NB: This refers to the footnote on pg 268, which states that all ruined buildings belong to the Raven King. Also in part to the note on pg 36, which says that he sometimes takes "fair people" to live with him in his own land.
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I loved it - and as for what I expected, the fun of that prompt was to see what someone would do, as the possibilities are nearly endless. This is great. :-)
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