A Game of Thrones Chapter Seventeen

BranIt revealmed as though he had been f everying for years.fly ball, a interpreter whispered in the darkness, hardly Bran did non k today how to fly, so all he could do was fall.Maester Luwin made a little boy of clay, cook him till he was hard and brittle, dressed him in Brans clothes, and flung him off a roof. Bran remembered the way he shattered. But I never fall, he said, move.The free-base was so distant beneath him he could b arly make it unwrap through the grey mists that whirled rough him, but he could feel how close he was travel, and he knew what was waiting for him down t here. Even in dreams, you could non fall forever. He would wake up in the flash lamp in the beginning he slay the ground, he knew. You always woke up in the instant before you hit the ground.And if you dont? the vo grouch asked.The ground was closer now, still far far out, a thousand miles away, but closer than it had been. It was cold here in the darkness. There was no sun, no stars, sc arcely the ground below climax up to smash him, and the grey mists, and the whispering voice. He precious to cry.Not cry. Fly.I cant fly, Bran said. I cant, I cant . . . How do you know? vex you ever tried?The voice was high and scale down. Bran looked around to see where it was coming from. A crow was spiraling down with him, well(p) step to the fore of reach, avocation him as he fell. Help me, he said.Im trying, the crow replied. Say, got any lemon yellow?Bran reached into his pocket as the darkness spun dizzily around him. When he pulled his impart out, golden kernels slid from between his fingers into the air. They fell with him.The crow landed on his plenty and began to eat.Are you veridically a crow? Bran asked.Are you really go? the crow asked backwards.Its just a dream, Bran said.Is it? asked the crow.Ill wake up when I hit the ground, Bran told the bird.Youll die when you hit the ground, the crow said. It went back to eating corn.Bran looked down. He could see mo untains now, their peaks sporting with snow, and the silver thread of rivers in dark woods. He shut his nerve centers and began to cry.That wont do any good, the crow said. I told you, the answer is flying, non crying. How hard can it be? Im doing it. The crow took to the air and flapped around Brans hand.You realise wings, Bran pointed out.Maybe you do too.Bran mat up along his shoulders, groping for feathers.There argon different kinds of wings, the crow said.Bran was staring at his arms, his legs. He was so skinny, just skin stretched taut over bones. Had he always been so thin? He tried to remember. A face swam up at him out of the grey mist, shine with light, golden. The things I do for love, it said.Bran screamed.The crow took to the air, cawing. Not that, it yell at him. Forget that, you do not need it now, attribute it aside, put it away. It landed on Brans shoulder, and pecked at him, and the shining golden face was gone.Bran was falling faster than ever. The grey m ists howled around him as he plunged toward the earth below. What are you doing to me? he asked the crow, tearful.Teaching you how to fly.I cant flyYoure flying tight now.Im fallingEvery flight begins with a fall, the crow said. Look down.Im afraid . . . escort DOWNBran looked down, and felt his insides turn to water. The ground was rushing up at him now. The whole world was spread out below him, a arras of white and brown and green. He could see everything so clearly that for a moment he forgot to be afraid. He could see the whole realm, and everyone in it.He motto Winterfell as the eagles see it, the tall editorials looking roly-poly and stubby from above, the castle walls just lines in the dirt. He axiom Maester Luwin on his balcony, studying the sky through a polished bronze provide and frowning as he made notes in a book. He saw his brother Robb, taller and stronger than he remembered him, practicing swordplay in the yard with real steel in his hand. He saw Hodor, the si mple giant from the stables, carrying an anvil to Mikkens forge, hefting it onto his shoulder as easily as another man energy heft a bale of hay. At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the melanize pool, its leaves rustling in a chill hook. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly.He looked east, and saw a galley racing crosswise the waters of the Bite. He saw his mother sitting alone in a cabin, looking at a bloodstained knife on a table in front of her, as the rowers pulled at their oars and Ser Rodrik leaned across a rail, shaking and heaving. A storm was gathering ahead of them, a vast dark roaring lashed by lightning, but somehow they could not see it.He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident. He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored alike(p) the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he undefended his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the shorten sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the JadeSea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons affected beneath the sunrise.Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past sempiternal forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and thence beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears fire on his cheeks.Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.Why? Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling.Because winter is coming.Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jaggy blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid. feces a man still be brave if hes afraid? he heard his own voice saying, small and far away.And his fathers voice replied to him. That is the only time a man can be bra ve.Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die.Death reached for him, screaming.Bran spread his arms and flew.Wings unseen drank the wind and filled and pulled him upward. The terrible needles of ice receded below him. The sky opened up above. Bran soared. It was better than climbing. It was better than anything. The world grew small beneath him.Im flying he cried out in delight.Ive noticed, said the three-eyed crow. It took to the air, flapping its wings in his face, subnormality him, blinding him. He faltered in the air as its pinions beat against his cheeks. Its nose stabbed at him fiercely, and Bran felt a sudden blinding pain in the middle of his forehead, between his eyes.What are you doing? he shrieked.The crow opened its hooter and cawed at him, a shrill scream of fear, and the grey mists shuddered and swirled around him and ripped away like a veil, and he saw that the crow was really a woman, a serving woman with long black hair, and he knew her from somewhere, from Wi nterfell, yes, that was it, he remembered her now, and then he realized that he was in Winterfell, in a bed high in some chilly tower room, and the dark-haired woman dropped a basin of water to shatter on the write up and ran down the steps, shouting, Hes awake, hes awake, hes awake.Bran touched his forehead, between his eyes. The place where the crow had pecked him was still burning, but there was nothing there, no blood, no wound. He felt faded and dizzy. He tried to get out of bed, but nothing happened.And then there was movement beside the bed, and something landed lightly on his legs. He felt nothing. A pair of yellow eyes looked into his own, shining like the sun. The windowpane was open and it was cold in the room, but the warmth that came off the wildcat enfolded him like a hot bath. His pup, Bran realized . . . or was it? He was so big now. He reached out to pet him, his hand trembling like a leaf.When his brother Robb burst into the room, breathless from his dash up th e tower steps, the direwolf was licking Brans face. Bran looked up calmly. His name is Summer, he said.