[Mkguild] Inchoate Carillon, Inconstant Cuckold (16 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

Inchoate Carillion, Inconstant Cuckold
By Charles Matthias



March 7, 708 CR


James didn't remember arriving in the vast chamber. For as far back 
as his mind could trace the current moment he had always been 
standing in the empty stone hall that stretched for at least a mile 
in each direction. The distant walls rose up on either side and 
seemed to bend as they continued to rise, until they formed a conical 
arch overhead. But as he stared upward, he could see nothing in the 
enclosing darkness. There were no torches or lanterns, not even the 
fickle dancing of a witchlight to provide illumination. Yet near to 
the ground the donkey could see everything clearly. But as soon as he 
lifted his head everything he tried to stare at vanished behind a 
veil of shadow.

The floor beneath him was fashioned from carefully fitted together 
stone blocks, each wider than he could stretch out his arms. The 
grooves between them were so tight that not even a hair could slip 
through the cracks. And their surface was so flat that James feared 
slipping on his hooves.

He moved carefully around, looking from wall to wall to see if, even 
at his great distance, he could see some door through which he could 
escape. But as far away as he was the walls seemed as featureless as 
the floor. James picked a direction and began to walk, warily lifting 
his eyes to the ponderous weight that seemed to press down on him 
from the shadows above. The clop of his hooves on the stone did not 
echo. Even his breath and heart beat offered no sound to hear. 
Everything was silent.

 From above him a vast throbbing made him tumble to all fours before 
crouching as low to the ground as he could manage. The sensation, it 
was too deep and encompassing to call sound, pulverized all concern 
about escape until there was nothing left in him but muscle and sinew 
encasing brittle bone.

The soul shall find itself alone.

Alone. James breathed slowly, ears pressing back along his neck and 
sharp mane. The chamber now echoed with that thought, a clarion ring 
that brought with it images and faces that spoke of a time before the 
chamber, a time before the timbre and pitch of the shadows above had 
beckoned him.

How could he be alone? He saw his friend Charles the rat before him, 
regaling him with the news that he'd secured his position on the 
mission to the mountains after his brief slip had put it into 
jeopardy. Charles didn't want him to be alone; Charles wanted his company.

But to what end? Baerle would be there too wouldn't she? Was he 
trying to give James another chance to express himself to the opossum?

Another image seemed to ricochet into his mind as the throbbing from 
above continued. The opossum had wrapped her arms tightly about the 
rat's neck when he'd returned from Metamor. Relief? Comfort? What had 
been the motive? What was the purpose behind such contact? Her eyes, 
never noticing the donkey, strayed ever to the rat who called him 
friend. She lived in his house. She breastfed his children.

What about him?

Another blast of presence pressed him further against the ground. His 
bones trembled under the assault; before his startled eyes his hands 
and arms melted into hooves and forelegs of a common donkey.

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish.

Alone. A common beast of burden to both Charles and Baerle. Was it 
really a wonder that they wanted him along on the trip into the mountains?

The vibrations that before had crushed him low now seemed to fill him 
with their own peculiar energy. He lifted his long head, glaring into 
the darkness, almost certain that he could make out a long thine line 
that curved in a wide circle through the shadow.

James drove all four of his hooves into the smooth stone beneath him 
and forced his body upright. He felt the brand in his side flaring 
with febrile life. He could almost taste a bit in his mouth and feel 
straps across his face and neck. When he moved forward, they pulled 
against him as if he were dragging a cart or plow.

No! James ground his teeth together and shook his neck back and 
forth, bucking his shoulders and throwing off whatever bindings were 
lashed to him. He forced his hooves to return to being hands and 
after a moment's clutching fear that they would stubbornly remain a 
beast's hooves, they cleaved and his fingers returned.

He stood on two legs and lifted his head to the darkness above. The 
vague suggestion of an outline shifted hazily through the shadow. A 
sonorous vibration made him tremble.

The soul shall find itself alone.

James shook his head and covered his face with his hands. "No! No, I 
don't want to be alone!"

The soul shall find itself alone.

"No! Please, not that!"

Alone!

"I will have her! I will!"

Alone!

"No I won't! She'll be mine! Whatever it takes, I won't be alone!" 
His voice felt raw as he shouted up into a darkness that swallowed 
his words like a frog swallowing flies. And then the darkness 
throbbed anew, the faint outline circling round him so wide and so 
ponderously, yet for a moment, he thought he caught a glint of an 
edge scalloping upward further into the invisible.

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish.

James blinked and felt his eyes drawn down toward his hooves. There, 
resting as if it had always lain there between his hooves, was his 
cracked bell. Slowly, the donkey lowered and lifted that instrument 
into his hands, cradling its soft, but thrumming surface. He pressed 
the unbroken side to his snout and spread his lips wide against it, 
until it trembled against his flat teeth.

With a desperate desire, and a resolute endeavor.

James could see her before him, her soft white fur, small perky ears, 
long tail, trembling whiskers, and brilliant eyes. If his bell could 
do what he saw it do that hare, what more could it yet do?

Nevermore.

What more could it yet do to make sure he would nevermore be alone?

Of despair!

No more for him. James breathed of the scent of the bell, breathed of 
its chrome and hint of fire, the cool of the iron, and tickling of 
soot. No more despair for him. No more being alone. Above him the 
weighty might of the bell he knew that had poured forth its essence 
into the small marvel he clutched in his arms, began to toll with 
pitiless determination.

Words trickled from his lips as if pouring from that ageless beacon, 
"I say that dream was fraught with wild and waking thought. Let none 
of earth inherit that vision on my spirit. I care not though it 
perish with a thought I then did cherish." He gasped for breath when 
the words ceased, so simple and yet each felt like a shovel jabbing 
into his chest.

Tolling. Bells. Bells. Bells.

James trembled and brayed with a feverish laugh. His voice was once 
more his own. "Baerle. You are mine." He struck the bell in his hands 
and it resounded with a cacophonous knell that echoed and echoed, 
rebounding around him like thunder. Everything around fell into 
shadow but that last vision of her brilliant face.


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May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,

Charles Matthias


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