The Legend Begins Read Free

here.”
    There was a grim silence, and then Crow fluttered down. “Crow knowing what to do. Must asking advice of Sett Owl. Many animals asking Herness to thinking for them.”
    Little Fur clapped her hands. “Crow, you must fly at once and ask her what we should do.”
    Crow ruffled his feathers evasively. “Herness not answering Crow.”
    â€œBut you said she is used to being asked for advice by creatures other than owls.”
    â€œAnswering all creatures
but
crows,” said Crow. “Sett Owl hating crows because flock attacking her when she being fledgling. Maybe you can asking some other bird to talking her.”
    Little Fur shook her head. “Most wild birds can’t remember anything for more than a few seconds unless it has to do with nesting or food. If only there was someone else I could ask, but all of the animals here are . . .”
    â€œToo stupid,” Crow concluded.
    â€œToo small. I wonder if I could ask one of the other birds to invite the Sett Owl here,” Little Fur murmured. “One of them might manage that.”
    â€œShe not coming,” Crow warned. “She flying bad because of wing injured in attacking long ago. All wanting answers must coming to Herness in beaked house.”
    Brownie broke in to announce that he had to go home. Crow fluttered into a tree and tried to look as if he were thinking deeply, but he was bird enough for it to be hard for him to keep his mind on the problem. After all, his wings would lift him above any danger. He preened himself surreptitiously and soon fell asleep.

    Little Fur lay wide awake in her favorite sleeping place among the roots of the eldest of the Old Ones. She had seen a fire only once, when lightning had struck at the edge of the wilderness, but rain had put it out before long. But the hot orange tongues of flame had traveled with frightening speed and she vividly remembered the whispered terror of the trees.
    When at last she did sleep, it was an uneasy doze in which she seemed to hear the Old One whispering to her that all things came to an end, even seemingly immortal trees, and that fire was as much a force of nature as rain or sunlight or even humans.

    Little Fur woke with tears on her cheeks and the knowledge that she must go to the Sett Owl. She climbed to the top of the hill and gazed outward, over the shadowy rooftops of the human dwellings around the wilderness to the mysterious, shining high houses in the distance. Animals said there were few trees and green places around the high houses, but the beaked house was in an older part of the city where roads were sometimes made from round cobblestones that let the earth breathe, and where there were trees and tiny parks and paths of grass. There were even green places where humans did not bother to go. Little Fur felt sure that she could make her way carefully from one of these green places to the next without losing touch with the flow of earth magic. And it could not be very far if, as Crow said, the bells they sometimes heard tolling in the wilderness belonged to the beaked house. She would have to go slowly but she could travel at night, when most humans slept. That meant a greater chance of encountering trolls, but there were not so many in the parts of the city where green things grew, and if she was careful, she could avoid them.
    A greater risk would be the ragged, wrong-smelling humans that cats called greeps. There were a good many of these living in shallow burrows and crevices in the older parts of the city, and they were bolder than trolls because they were not afraid of other humans. But Little Fur had the impression from cats’ tales that greeps were awkward and clumsy, so perhaps they could be avoided, too.

CHAPTER 3
    A Dark Road
    â€œThis is a very bad idea,” Brownie said.
    â€œThere is no other way.” Little Fur pushed some dried mushrooms into her pouch.
    â€œWhat if a human sees you?” asked Brownie.