A Time to Eat Crow

The evening sun dipped over the horizon, silhouetting the weathered stone tower on the hill. Surrounded by old weeping willows, its dark visage pierced the rising moon like a deadly arrow.

An evening breeze caressed the long grass in the courtyard, as the click of a loose shingle slapped on the broken roof of the dilapidated stable nearby. Somewhere, locked in the limbs of a nearby willow, a crow cawed.

A wan light flickered through the dirty stained glass in the tower’s uppermost window. An omen for any who might call upon the owners of the derelict structure. It’s flickering light telling all who might wander nearby that they were not welcome.

Bartholomew slowly made his way up the circling stairwell to the topmost floor. His long beard dragged through the dust on the steps. An aged, gnarled hand gripping a staff as it clicked loudly on each step, the only support for the frail old man.

Rupert, his brother, whom he hadn’t spoken to in nearly seventy years, was already pulling out a chair at the ancient cracked wooden table. His beard wasn’t nearly as long as his older brothers, however, he kept it tucked within his belt.

Gently, with a slight glance as Bart entered the room, he leaned his own staff against the table, well within reach.

“Good evening, Bart,” he said and grinned a yellow-toothed grin. Every night, the ritual was the same. Bartholomew simply pretended his brother didn’t exist.

In silence, they sat and waited. Bartholomew counted the scrolls on a nearby shelf, as he did every evening. There were hundreds of them, some dating back thousands of years. Sadly, there were no recent additions to the collection, and there hadn’t been for a very long time.

Leather-bound books filled other shelves, covered in heavy dust and cobwebs. No one read them anymore. This room of knowledge was all but forgotten, except for the two old men sitting at the table. The people of the world no longer required the knowledge of the ancients, didn’t need to know the origins of the world and its inhabitants. They had the internet now. They no longer required the wisdom of two old wizards.

Time slipped by so easily, even waiting for an evening meal seemed an eternity. Finally, in a puff of black smoke, a sinewy black-skinned servant, one of many in the tower, appeared with a steaming plate of pasta covered in a thick red sauce, peaked by a single meatball.

With fervent speed, the servant seemed to grow additional hands as it set the large plate of food in the center of the table and placed empty plates with forks and spoons in front of each of the grumpy old men. It smiled a toothless grin at each wizard as it backed away and faded in the flickering shadows.

Rupert grimaced. “Pasta, again?” he questioned and reached for the serving ladle buried beneath the heap of noodles. Bartholomew waited in silence as his brother served himself.

Rupert always took his time. He knew it annoyed his stubborn brother and that he would do absolutely nothing about it. Intentionally, he set the ladle down on his side of the serving plate, forcing Bartholomew to reach for it. As he stretched to gather up the ladle, his long beard dragged through the pasta. Growling, he fought the urge to send a glare his brother’s way, but considered it best to just continue pretending he wasn’t really there.

Both forks skewered the lone meatball at the same time. Rupert looked up, squinting at his brother, somewhat shocked to find him looking right back at him, a look of disdain on his amazingly wrinkled face.

Rupert grinned his yellow-toothed grin again. “I ‌believe my fork was here first.”

“Fumus,” Bartholomew mumbled.

Rupert’s fork disappeared in a puff of smoke. He stared disbelievingly at his empty hand and then finally looked up at his brother. “Seventy years,” he said in his gravelly old voice.

“You haven’t spoken in seventy years and the first time you do, you vaporize my fork?”

Bart smiled. It was a horrendous facial movement. Rupert was sure his brother’s face was breaking. Wrinkles hidden within wrinkles suddenly appeared, and a strange jiggle was in his jowls. Was he… Chuckling?

Bart lifted the meatball from the plate, preparing to take a large bite from it, when it suddenly flew off of his fork, spattering sauce straight up his face. He spluttered and looked up at the meatball now hovering high over his head. Again, he growled under his breath as he slowly wiped the sauce from his face.

Rupert’s chair lurched and skidded backwards across the floor with him still in it. It banged roughly against a shelf. Scrolls, after years of never being touched, covered with the grime of an eternity, fell into a heap on top of him. The meatball tumbled from the air back onto Bart’s plate audibly. More sauce spattered onto Bart’s robes, but he ignored it.

Rupert wiped the dust from his face. Shaking his head, produced a small dust cloud, and he noticed his shoes had not made the sudden journey across the room. They remained under the table. Skid marks from the chair led from the table to where he was currently sitting. He wiggled his toes and waved an admonishing finger in Bart’s direction. With a smirk, he winked.

Bart was apparently still chuckling when the table vanished and reappeared in front of Rupert. Bart had been leaning on it with his elbows at the time of its departure, now no longer supported by the table. They hung precariously in the air for a silent moment and he toppled forward out of his own chair. His head cracked on the wooden slats of the floor, and he groaned. His bony backside stuck straight in the air just as Rupert’s staff, no longer supported by the table, toppled, striking Bartholomew squarely in the keister.

Rupert guffawed. He couldn’t help it. To see his brother in such a state sent waves of laughter through his body. Bart slowly got to his knees, rubbing his forehead, mystified by the grating sound emanating from his brother.

Rupert’s hair suddenly stood on end. He could feel the static charge in the room building and his laughter came to an abrupt halt, and he coughed despite himself. Without thought, he ducked beneath the table just as a lightning bolt blew a man-sized hole through the stone wall of the tower with a deafening crack. The evening breeze blew the dust and smoke from the explosion back into the room, while wood splinters, burning scrolls and scraps of books rained down around him and the table. He could see that his brother once again had the meatball skewered on his fork as he struggled to regain his chair.

Spluttering, Rupert climbed from beneath the table. “Ignis!” he bellowed with a point, just before Bart’s teeth struck home on the meaty morsel.

Bart’s beard burst into flame, climbing his robes like a fuse on a stick of dynamite. The stench of burning hair permeated the room as he jumped to his feet, patting frantically at his beard to put out the flames. Rupert summoned his staff and spelled the meatball to once again hover in the center of the room.

Successfully staunching the flames that had burned away more than half of his centuries old beard, Bart glowered at his brother. A black scorch mark now adorned the front of his dusty old robes. He noticed the hovering meatball and reached for his own staff.

They faced each other, each with their staves at the ready. Magic not seen or used in centuries lit up the tower as the two brothers dueled for the right to eat the only meatball the imp minions had delivered on the plate.

Bart would attack with a powerful spell and Rupert would counter it with another and strike back with something even more powerful. Back and forth they went, each calling on the many years of experience, study, and stubbornness.

Blasts of fire, wind, earth and water warped wood, obliterated stone, twisted time and crackled loudly. It decimated the age-old library, filling the room with smoke and debris. Scrolls and books, long forgotten by the modern world, historical records, arcane ramblings of wizards long past, the location of Jimmy Hoffa, all lost in the wake of their wizardly war.

So evenly matched they were, they held up to each other’s onslaught. The tower, however, after centuries of housing the brothers, did not fare well.

Weak and just plain exhausted, their spells waned to minor cantrips and annoyances. Bart would force a gnat to bite his brother, while his brother would send a puff of wind into Bart’s ear. Finally, all magic and energy spent, they faced each other, exhausted. Neither acknowledged the rubble they stood within.

Bart breathed heavily while he stared. “I am the Wizard of the West. You cannot defeat me.”

Rupert laughed his grating laugh. “You were... WERE... The Wizard of the West. You, like me, are a relic and no longer required! Not in this world of machines and electronics, the information age they call it! No one reads anymore, at least not in depth. We are both relics of time long forgotten!”

Bart wilted, leaning heavily on his staff. Shuffling to his toppled chair, he took a moment to turn it upright and sat down.

“Do you know why I stopped talking to you?” he chuckled to himself. It was an irritating sound. “Thinking back, I realize how ridiculous it is.”

Rupert paused, looking around at the devastation of their tower. “To be honest, not really.”

“You took the only meatball,” Bart explained with some levity as he glanced up at the hovering meatball that had sparked off this disagreement. “That night, the imps served pasta, and you took the meatball without even asking if I wanted any. I watched you eat it, completely oblivious to how I felt about it. You didn’t even offer to share.”

Rupert laughed. “Is that what all of this was about? The last seventy years and...” he paused, looking about. “All of this?”

“I would not let it happen again, dammit,” Bart barked back. “I wanted the damn meatball!”

Rupert plunked down on a large piece of tower debris. “Fine,” he replied. “It’s yours.” He waved his hand, and the meatball fell from its hovering perch.

Bart smiled, prepared to catch it.

He didn’t see the crow until it was too late. It snatched Bart’s prize mid flight and disappeared into the night.

“Damn bird!”