[Mkguild] Inchoate Carillon, Inconstant Cuckold (18 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

Some very important scenes today.

Inchoate Carillion, Inconstant Cuckold
By Charles Matthias



March 8, 708 CR

There were many advantages to being a tree scout. 
Being an opossum, it felt natural to Baerle to be 
scrambling around through the high branches away 
from the forest floor; it conveyed a sense of 
safety to her that was instinctual more than 
coherent. None of the bigger predators could 
reach her up in the trees, and those few that 
could climb after her she could easily evade. Or 
so the little whispers in the back of her mind 
told her, even if they could not even use words 
to do it. The feeling of safety was like a shawl 
draped over her body when she perched on a solid 
branch, her tail curling around its haft.

One of the biggest was that it allowed her to 
keep clandestine watch on her friends down below 
whenever they were in the Glen or nearby. That 
morning, in the still cool hours when the sky had 
no sun but brightened like a sapphire in 
anticipation of its arrival, she chose once again 
to watch the rat Charles Matthias as he crouched 
and wept over his lost son in the Follower graveyard.

The boy Ladero's death had been an agony for her, 
even more so for Kimberly. How well Baerle could 
remember the many months in which she'd felt that 
little boy's muzzle at her breast taking 
nourishment. It was the closest she who was 
barren would ever come to motherhood. She had 
cried herself to sleep several nights thinking 
about that sweet little boy who'd bravely faced a 
horrific death that he neither understood nor 
deserved. But the wound had mostly healed.

Until Charles's return had ripped it wide open 
again. And with it, the long postponed yearning 
in her heart to be more than just a nursemaid for Charles.

Kimberly had offered to let Baerle be Charles's 
mistress if her husband so desired her. It had 
come through tears, but also through a love and 
pity for the barren opossum that made Kimberly 
one of the bravest people Baerle had ever known.

Charles knew nothing of the offer. The desire to 
have Baerle as his mistress had to come from him. 
And with Kimberly and the other children gone and 
the man she loved grieving, she knew that she 
could offer herself as solace. She knew that he 
was at his most vulnerable now and that it would 
be so very easy to help him find comfort between the sheets of his bed.

But could she live with herself if she took 
advantage of him like that? Could Kimberly still 
love her as a sister if she took advantage like that?

Her tail tightened about the branch as she leaned 
forward ever so slightly. Below her in the 
shadowy grove Charles knelt on the ground, his 
hands pressed into the stone of the marker. He'd 
brought a lantern with him, and the light 
glistened off his granite flesh. She'd touched 
him once when he was stone, and it had been cold 
and lifeless, yet moved beneath her. It had 
frightened Kimberly and intrigued his children. 
Baerle didn't quite know how she was supposed to feel about it.

But as she watched, heart torn, eyes beginning to 
tear over the poor boy and the family that missed 
him, Charles began to sink more and more of his 
body into the marker, arms up to the elbows 
vanishing within the stone, making it bulge and 
swell in all directions. Her one hand holding the 
branch tightened, claws digging into the bark, 
while her other quickly brushed the tears from 
her face. The rat didn't stop pushing, forcing 
his head into the stone cross until it blended 
like puddy. She gasped as he shoved himself into 
the marker up to his chest, the vine that wrapped 
about him shifting to curl around the stone marker.

What should she do? Was there anything she could 
do? Baerle considered scrambling down the tree to 
try and stop him before he turned himself 
completely into a gravestone. Could she even pull him back out?

Baerle would try anyway. She scrambled along the 
branch with all four paws and started bouncing 
down the main trunk of the tree from one branch 
to another before she stopped and breathed a sigh 
of relief. Charles, after pressing down almost to 
his waist so that he was but a tombstone with 
legs and a tail, withdrew his upper body which 
gained definition with each inch. Baerle breathed 
a sigh of relief and quietly made her way back up redwood.

By the time she resumed her perch, Charles was 
standing over his body's grave now fully flesh 
again. He made the sign of the yew before his 
chest, trembled in anguish, before picking up the 
lantern and walking back toward the Glen commons. 
Baerle shut her eyes tight to keep any more tears from flowing.

It took her several minutes to calm herself 
enough to open her eyes. The opossum lifted her 
gaze up through the boughs of needles, cones, and 
branches toward the brightening sky. Her breath 
sagged in her chest and even her tail relaxed and 
loosened its grip. The trembling in her paws 
ceased as her eyes absorbed all the interweaving strands of tree before her.

She couldn't. Baerle knew that. With a long sigh, 
a sigh filled with love for the Matthias family, 
especially her sister whose heart she was sick of 
hurting, she knew that she had to let Charles go. 
Even if he made an advance toward her, she could 
not let him. For the sake of their family, Baerle 
offered her love for the rat back to his wife.

The opossum took several deep breaths, marveling 
anxiously as her heart kept beating. It wasn't 
broken. Sore, lonely, but still beating. 
Tentatively, she slid down to where the branch 
emerged from the main trunk. There she crouched 
with her head between her knees and her tail 
wrapped tightly about the bark. Whispered prayers 
and sobs echoed in her throat, but neither slipped past her snout.

----------

James kept quiet during that day's scouting 
mission. Berchem lead around the other side of 
the lake and toward the base of Mt. Kalegris. 
This time they flushed some game and returned to 
the Glen with the carcass of a dead elk dragged 
on a travois, but they still found no sign of 
Lutins or bandits. Ralph and Anson warmed to him 
and expressed confidence that he would do well in 
the mountains in a few days. Berchem offered no such sentiment.

They caught the elk in the afternoon, and so once 
they'd dressed their kill, they headed back to 
the Glen. James could hear the bell thrumming in 
his pack with each step they took. The bell was anxious and eager. Hungry.

After bringing the elk to Jurmas at the Inn – the 
irony of a deer preparing an elk for feasting 
struck James as particularly hilarious just then 
– they reported their findings to Lord Avery 
before being dismissed for the night. James 
lingered until the others had dispersed and then 
leaned in closer to where the gray squirrel and 
badger sat conferring. “Milord Avery, have I proved myself capable?”

The squirrel frowned, apology writ in his dark 
eyes and lowered whiskers. Even his tail slowed 
its jerking from side to side. “You have, James. 
I'm sorry we doubted you. You will be going once the supplies are ready.”

“You are a very capable scout and warrior, 
James,” Angus added with warmth and a bit of 
pride. “I'll be delighted to have you at my side when we go.”

James took a deep breath and nodded, his ropey 
tail flicking back and forth once with his 
relief. The bell chimed delicately. He would have 
his chance to be alone with Baerle after all. He 
sucked his lips back against his teeth for a 
moment before asking, “When will we be leaving?”

“In two days,” Angus said with a grunt. “Burris 
should be finished by tomorrow. The supplies are almost ready.”

“I'll be ready with mine as well,” James said. 
“Now, I'm going to get something to eat. More 
scouting tomorrow. Good night, milord. Angus.” He 
bowed his head to them before leaving the brewery.

And he did as he promised. He walked the short 
distance up the hill and to the Inn. Several 
other scouts were there, including Ralph, Anson, 
and Berchem. They were seated in a cluster with 
some of the other scouts. James joined them, 
still carrying his pack over his shoulders. 
Jurmas the deer came by a moment later and 
offered them each something hot to eat. The 
donkey didn't even ask what it was, simply 
agreeing to whatever the others wanted.

Ralph, it turned out, had a veritable library of 
ribald stories that he could summon with the 
click of a tongue. James listened and laughed 
with the rest of them as they ate. His eyes 
strayed to watch the skunk from time to time, but 
otherwise he just enjoyed the vole's scandalous tales.

After a dozen, Ralph decided he'd rather drink 
than talk and so they settled into a few rounds 
of bock from Lars's brewery. The cheer was 
infectious, and for most of the scouts, it helped 
them forget for the night about the terror that 
was the plague gripping Metamor. But James could 
never forget his true purpose. The thrumming of 
the bell against his back kept his mind focused 
and clear. Each reverberation seemed to dissipate 
whatever beer he'd drunk so that his mind was crisp and alert like a new dawn.

It took three rounds before the skunk decided 
he'd had enough. “I've a few things to attend to 
before I get too inebriated,” he said as he stood 
up and extricated his legs from the table bench. 
Berchem's eyes were a little jittery, but his 
tongue was sure and his movements as fluid as 
they ever were out in the forest. “It's always a 
pleasure, my friends. But I bid you a good night.”

James lifted his mazer toward the skunk while 
Anson and Ralph and the other scouts all wished 
him a good night's rest. The donkey lingered a 
couple minutes more before similarly excusing 
himself. The fox and vole wished him well and 
promised to see him in the morning for another 
day of scouting the forests around the Glen. “I'm 
looking forward to it,” he assured them as he 
hoisted his sack. The bell throbbed with a silent peal against his spine.

Although he lived at the Inn, he did not head 
toward his chambers. Instead, he followed the 
skunk out into the evening twilight. The air was 
cold and his breath curled in twin plumes from 
his nostrils. James's tail tuft danced against 
his hocks. He lifted one hoof after the other and 
set them down against the hardening crust left 
behind when the snow had been cleared last. He 
followed the path from the Inn down to the Glen 
commons and then north through the first line of trees.

It was in the second line of trees that the skunk 
made his home. Between a pair of roots that 
pressed close together nestled the slanted door. 
It closed with a thunk behind the skunk's 
disappearing tail, and with it what little light 
he'd carried through the twilight. James crept 
around the line of massive trees, careful not to 
trip over any of the snaking roots as they dug 
into the earth, and stood for several seconds a dozen paces from the door.

James slipped the pack over his shoulders, undid 
the drawstring holding the top flap tight, and 
then shifted through the remains of that day's 
meal to retrieve his cracked bell. His hide shook 
as if dislodging flies when his hand met the 
iron. Thick fingers stroked across that smooth 
conical surface, savoring the bore; the tips of 
his hoof-like nails tickled the clapper.

Tolling.

He nodded in silent acquiescence. It was time.

James lifted the bell from his pack and held it 
firmly in his right hand. After retying the 
drawstring and slinging the pack over his 
shoulder, the donkey walked with gentle hooves 
across the pitted ground until he stood before 
the door. It angled away from him between the 
roots and bore no markings to identify it as the 
skunk's home. But there was a pungent musk 
pervading the air that made his nostrils twitch. 
He kicked the bottom of the door with one hoof as if he were knocking.

Berchem's voice sounded beneath him. “Who is it?”

“It's James,” he replied. “There was something I 
needed to speak with you about. I... I didn't 
want to do it in front of the others.”

He could hear the skunk grunt under his breath 
before saying, “Just a moment.” Claws clicked 
against wooden steps in front of him, and then he 
heard a wooden bar lifted out of the door. “Come on in.”

James kept the bell behind him as he lifted the 
door. It swung upward, revealing a set of 
descending stairs at the bottom of which stood 
the skunk. Berchem stepped out of his way and 
grimaced. “I don't have much to sit on. What's on your mind, James?”

Berchem wasn't lying. The stairs led down to a 
single room home. To the donkey's left was an 
array of fletching equipment neatly organized in 
racks, while next to them was a clothes chest and 
armor tree. On a stand in the middle of the room 
was a lantern providing soft lighting in every 
nook and cranny. Beyond and fashioned from stone 
into the roots of the tree was a hearth that had 
been used the previous night. Next to that was a 
single pallet with a plain green quilt draped 
over its length. The Matthias children played in 
a room larger than Berchem's home.

James pulled the door shut behind him and leaned 
against one wall to keep the bell concealed for a 
moment more. “Something you said yesterday has 
kept me thinking. You said that Baerle wasn't 
worth it. What did you mean by that?”

Even before the donkey had asked his question, 
Berchem's expression had been one of mild 
impatience. The skunk wanted James out of his 
home so he could get some sleep or whatever it 
was he'd intended to do. But with the mention of 
the opossum's name his muzzle turned sour, his 
eyes darkened, his ears lowered, and his tail 
lashed back and forth. He growled under his voice, “Just forget about her.”

James lowered his snout an inch, letting his eyes 
more fully bore into the skunk. “I want to know.” 
He curled his wrist back, lifting the bell behind him.

Berchem crossed his arms once, and then uncrossed 
them, gesturing at the stairs with one paw. “No. 
Save yourself the pain and forget about her. Now 
if you have nothing else, please leave me to 
sleep. Tomorrow is going to be another long day, and we all need our sleep.”

Too much horrified to speak!

James shook his head. “No, Berchem. You are going 
to tell me. What did you mean?” He let slip his 
arm and struck the bell in the air. The chime 
cascaded from wall to wall, a clear brazen tone 
that made his heart quicken. The skunk blinked 
once and then slapped his paws over his ears and 
doubled forward, hackles raising along his back.

“What in all the hells?” he shouted, daring to 
reach one paw out to grasp James's wrist.

But James took a step back and swung the bell 
again. The gong dropped Berchem to his knees, 
eyes shut tight, and his entire body quaking with 
each echoing peal. He gasped, long tongue 
pressing past his fangs as he tried to find some 
avenue to escape the ricochet of sound in his mind.

Tolling, tolling, tolling.

James struck the bell one more time, his nostrils 
flaring as he watched the skunk crumple to all 
fours and shrink in stature nearly a foot as his 
body pulled inward as if making himself smaller 
would help him escape from the cracked bell's sonorous tones.

“Answer my question and I won't ring the bell anymore. Tell me the truth.”

Berchem lifted his head and hissed through his 
fangs. James ground his teeth together, and 
smacked the skunk in the head with the bell. He 
flipped onto his back and rolled around, kicking 
off his breeches in the process, and nearly 
upending the lantern as the echoing tone rolled on and on.

And he rolls, rolls, rolls.

“Do you want another paean from the bell?” James 
snapped, nearly braying in a fury that swelled 
with every throbbing monotone. The skunk's eyes 
ran with tears as hands that were nearly paws 
rubbed over his face trying to seal off his ears. 
His legs twitched in the air, shrunk to only half 
their normal size, while his tail snagged itself 
in one of the crossbeams beneath his pallet.

As the tone faded, Berchem's voice began to chirp 
and churr, and the words that he spoke could 
barely make the claim to be such. “I loved her.” 
James sneered and lifted the bell for another 
blow. Berchem shielding his face with one paw and 
whimpered like a child. “I did! I did!”

They can only shriek, shriek, out of tune!

James's lips flecked with spittle and he stomped 
his hooves near the skunk's head. “Tell me. Tell 
me or,” his two-fingered hand curled tighter 
about the handle of the cracked bell The conical 
bore glimmered with a fiery sheen in the lamplight.

Berchem's eyes were rimmed with white as he 
stared fixedly at the bell. He swallowed heavily, 
his limbs and shape ever so gradually resuming 
human proportions. James glowered at the skunk 
and twisted the bell back and forth in his hand; 
the clapper tickled the inside of the bell with a 
faint tintinnabulation. “Well? In a night, or in 
a day, in a vision, or in none. Tell me!”

Berchem rolled onto his right side, his hands 
splaying across the wooden floor as his legs 
hunched up, his chest heaving for each breath. 
“She came to the Glen almost two years ago,” he 
said slowly, his whiskers trembling as his snout 
and tongue formed each word. “From Mycransburg. 
The last of her family died. She was already a 
competent archer, so Lord Avery placed her under 
my tutelage. She was fetching and warmed to me 
quickly. When I learned that her family was gone, 
I comforted her. It didn't take long before it became something more.”

For the heart whose woes are legion. Yet the ear 
tells in the jangling, and the wrangling.

James ground his teeth together and steadied his 
grip on the bell. What a horrid thought it was to 
think that Baerle had once had feelings for this 
skunk who dared to say such vile things about 
her. The very image of Baerle resting her 
narrow-snouted head against the monochromatic 
chest fur of this striped, saturnine scout – not 
to mention running her gentle and nimble fingers 
through that same coat – inflamed his gorge as if it were a fresh wasp sting.

“Villain!” James sneered with a bray. “You lie 
about Baerle! She would never be with you!”

Berchem's jowls drew back over his fangs and he 
hissed back at the donkey. James lifted his arm, 
ready to strike his bell again, when the skunk 
leaped into him. He brayed in surprise as a 
vice-like grip clamped down on his right wrist, 
while the other hand grabbed him around the 
throat and squeezed tight. “You little shit!” 
Berchem snarled as he pushed James back against 
the stairs. “I did love her! I did! What by all 
the daedra has possessed you? This bell... this bell is evil!”

James swung his free arm and struck the skunk on 
the back several times, and kicked with his 
hooves but the skunk responded by pressing his 
claws against his neck and forcing him with 
strength along to buckle toward the ground. 
Berchem's eyes, once filled with fright, were now 
livened by rage. “I don't know what this bell is 
doing to you, but it ends now. “

The stairs bit painfully into his back, and his 
tail lashed beneath his as he struggled with his 
hooves to gain some purchase, clattering against 
the wood as fruitlessly as if it were ice. His 
chest heaved and his throat coughed beneath the 
skunk's grip; the world swam above him, the only 
thing certain was the mephit's burnished fury. He 
tried to shake his hand to make the bell ring, 
but he couldn't even summon the faintest of tinkling from the clapper.

What had he been thinking in trying to challenge 
Berchem like this? The skunk had been training as 
a Glen scout his entire life. James had barely 
more than a year's worth of experience to boast 
of; and no matter how much Charles, Angus, or 
anyone else assured him that he did have reason 
to boast, he knew it was just the pity of his 
betters speaking. What could he possibly do 
against somebody as experienced as this skunk who 
was methodically strangling him into unconsciousness?

Tolling...

Even the murmuring of his bell seemed a distant 
thing to him as the world above lost focus. He 
vainly tried to pull Berchem's hand from his 
neck, but the skunk's grip was as sure as a 
lodestone's. Darkness caressed his thoughts and 
scampered about the edge's of his vision. His 
throat ached for a single clear breath. What good 
were his boasts about killing that Sondecki if a 
skunk who had no magical ability could topple him and conquer him so easily?

Tolling...

Then again, how could he even claim he'd killed 
Zagrosek? The massive carillon had accomplished 
that. He'd merely cut the rope holding them up in 
that vaulted ceiling. His mind vacillated between 
the concerted, beastly face before him and the 
visions of the dark night where he dreamed of joy 
departed. The vaulted chamber with walls a mile 
distant swelled before him. How it swelled; how it dwelt on the future.

Tolling.

If he fell unconscious, they would separate him 
from the bell. Baerle would hate him. Charles 
would be disgusted with him. Angus would be 
disappointed in him. And Berchem, he who had cast 
such vexatious imprecations on the sweet opossum, 
would always be the stronger than he. James 
screamed inside as he tried to yank the paw from 
his neck. The claws dug in deeper as his efforts grew weaker.

Tolling.

His head fell back against the wooden steps, and 
in his half-waking nightmare, he could see up 
into the darkened ceiling at the vast rim that 
stretched before him. The shadows, for a brief 
moment, glimmering with a translucent 
phosphorescence, parted to reveal what hid there. 
James felt as if he were the greatest of fools. 
The bell he held in his hand was exactly the same 
bell he had dropped on Zagrosek!

Tolling!

How could it have come all this way with him? 
Weren't the bells from the Chateau destroyed?

A lonely spirit guiding.

Guiding him, but why?

I dwelt alone in a world of moan, and my soul was 
a stagnant tide. My soul at least a solace hath 
in dreams of thee, and therein knows an Eden.

They wanted to be with him. James felt such a 
certain delight in knowing and in being. The 
bells wanted to toll and toll for him. They 
would! This skunk could never silence them!

James straightened his eyes and with one last 
burst of energy slapped his free hand against the 
ground as if he held the bell in that hand 
instead of his constrained right. The air split 
with a clear tone that silenced all other noise. 
That single note encapsulated the unity that 
existed between James and the bell. It did not 
echo, but lingered like a living presence finally come to dwell in their midst.

Berchem gasped at the sound, his grip on the 
donkey's neck and wrist weakening as he recoiled 
from the pressure radiating from James's body. 
With a snap of his wrist, James rang the bell 
again, doubling the tone so that there were now 
two notes shimmering in the air in exquisite 
harmony. The skunk trembled, trying vainly to 
keep his grip on James's neck to squeeze the last 
of his air, but already his claws were slipping 
against the donkey's thick hide, the callused 
pads on his fingers losing definition as his arms began to shrink.

Tolling!

James swung the bell again, and the chord hung in 
the air like a choir of heavenly voices. 
Berchem's eyes shut tight as he finally let go, 
crumpling back in a pile of warping limbs and 
tail. James put his hooves beneath him and stood, 
towering over the simpering creature. James could 
feel the three bells cascading over his hide and 
through his ears. This was their voice proper, and it commanded obedience.

“Now,” he said in a firm rumble that nevertheless 
blended harmoniously with the music of the 
carillons. “Tell me of Baerle. If she loved you 
too, then why did she leave you?”

Berchem quivered for several long seconds, trying 
to crawl toward the quilt-covered pallet, before 
James stepped on his tail and ground it beneath 
his hoof. The skunk hissed, but couldn't crawl 
any further away. The glamor of the bells faded 
some, but still rang in the air with a crispness like ice at dawn. “Tell me.”

“She lied to me,” Berchem said through clenched 
fangs as his head dwindled in stature. “I told 
her what I yearned for. A family. A son. She knew 
she was barren and said nothing! Nothing until 
after I asked for her paw in marriage!” He spat 
his words and dug his claws into the wood with 
both hands and feet. His thumbs looked just like 
his fingers so beastly had they become.

James swung the bell once, but said nothing. The 
shimmering fourth note clung to the air and 
battered the skunk's head into the ground. His 
forehead sank back as his body began to drag 
along the floor, slipping free of his tunic, and 
gathering toward his tail where the donkey's hoof 
kept it fixed. Berchem's claws gouged the wood floor in long narrow trails.

The skunk's fury for one moment vanished. His 
eyes stared across the small chambers filled with 
so little and they brimmed with tears. “All I've 
ever wanted is a son. I could teach him to hunt, 
shoot, and scout. I could teach him to be a good 
man.” The skunk took a deep breath and then 
lifted his head over his shoulder to glare at 
James. “Baerle should have told me she was barren 
when I told her what I hoped! She lied to me and 
waited until much later! She lied!”

James kicked him in the haunches with his other 
hoof firmly enough to snap the skunk out of his 
tirade, but not so much to actually break the bone. “What did you do to her?”

“I told her we could never be together!” Berchem 
was almost completely a skunk in body now, yet 
his tongue could fashion words that seemed to 
make sense through the sonorous chord. James 
readied another kick, when Berchem arched his 
back and sunk his teeth into James's fetlock. A 
furious bray escaped his throat as he kicked his 
leg forward. The bell struck three times more in 
his fury, adding a fifth, sixth, and seventh note to the symphonic utterance.

The cascade of sound battered the skunk across 
the room, forcing him to shrink until he was a 
complete skunk. He buried his head into the 
quilts, frantically digging to escape the chorus. 
James savored the polyphony, seeing the massive 
carillons tolling in their belfry where once they 
had watched over the house of Marzac.

Bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells.

“You threw her away.” James said as he walked 
slowly toward the pallet, his body nearly 
floating as the waves of sound lifted his limbs. 
“You cast aside her. She who is worth hundreds, 
nay, thousands of you! Stupid little beast!”

The skunk lifted his head for a moment, ears 
backed against his head, and chirped, “There's more!”

James blinked and stood still next to the 
lantern. He lifted the bell and pressed it 
against his chest. The warm vibrations coruscated 
through his heart and veins, even as they fled 
from the room, leaving a strange sort of silence 
in their wake. They, those mighty bells, were not 
gone, only in reserve. And with their absence 
Berchem's body began to grow again, human 
definition overcoming the mephit form.

The donkey's voice growled like an ostinato, 
sullen and bereft of compassion. “What else is 
there? Speak or I bring eight and nine. You will not survive nine.”

Berchem crouched on the pallet tangled in the 
mass of quilts. His limbs were still short and he 
had true paws instead of hands, but his head had 
regained its human stature. A thin line of blood 
trickled from one of his ears. He barely managed 
to make his ragged voice work, “Last year I was 
very drunk one night. So was Baerle. We came back 
here as if nothing had happened between us.” He 
paused for breath, dark eyes warily watching the 
bell, but what fight was left in him seemed to be 
reserved for telling this final tale. James 
lifted the bell half an inch and the skunk 
quickly resumed. “We weren't so drunk that we 
couldn't figure out what a man and woman are 
supposed to do. And it was... quite wonderful for 
a little bit. And then she called his name.”

A dark hand gripped James's heart and his ears 
lifted high over his head. His tail fell straight 
between his legs and his nostrils widened with a deep inhalation. “Who's name?”

Berchem looked him straight in the eye, a 
defiance there undimmed by the lingering traces 
of the seven bells. “You know. Charles.”

James ground his teeth together. “Nay!”

“Oh, Aye! Baerle thought she was a brimming Charles!”

He shook his head back and forth, braying a scream. “Nay! It's not true!”

“Of course it is! You've seen the way they look 
at each other. She's his mistress as surely as 
Nasoj is an damn wizard! And that's why I told 
you to forget about her. She's a brimming slut 
who'll break men's hearts just to get a little more tail!”

James swelled to his full height and drew his 
lips back across his teeth. “You! You!” He lifted 
the bell over his head. One swift blow would cave 
in the repulsive skunk's head.

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget.

The sweet ministrations of his bells stilled that 
vicious anger and afforded him a moment to 
consider things clearly. He had seen all of the 
looks and words that had passed between his 
beloved Baerle and his friend Charles. He'd known 
that there was at the very least affection if not 
intimacy between them. Could he truly deny it now?

No, he could not. But he would not give the 
skunk's story credence. If Baerle and Charles 
were adulterers, then it could not have been 
brought to pass by the opossum. His friend was 
the culprit; Charles who always worried whether 
James could handle the tasks before him; Charles 
who always felt he had to compliment the donkey 
for every little achievement in order to make it 
seem greater than it really was; Charles who 
boasted of his skills as a scout, as a 
knight-in-training, and even as a writer and 
anything else he attempted to do; Charles who 
made friends with everyone he met and could do no 
wrong even when he betrayed Metamor to her 
enemies; Charles who had a wife and children 
already and yet was so greedy that he had to take 
the one that James loved; how could James even call him friend anymore?

There was no other course of action left to him. 
It pained him, given that Charles had helped him 
get back on his hooves after he'd lost everything 
in Nasoj's winter attack. But had the rat acted 
out of love for James, or from his own vainglory 
and for the chance to boast of his charity to a 
poor Keeper who obviously couldn't fend for himself?

James ground his teeth together, lowering the 
bell slowly as his rage shifted from the skunk 
before him to the one for whom he once would have 
done anything. Charles was even more skilled of a 
warrior than Berchem. He would need the element 
of surprise. And he would need Baerle to see the rat for what he really was.

The answer came to him without even any prompting 
from the bells. The journey into the mountains 
was the key. There he could unmask that 
traitorous rodent for what he truly was. But if 
Berchem were dead, others might know that it was 
James who killed him. And if Berchem were alive, 
then surely the skunk would tell others what he'd 
done and he'd never be united with his opossum.

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget.

He chortled under his breath as the bells 
reiterated their will. James's eyes fixed on the 
skunk still cowering in the quilts half-way 
between a man and a beast. Of course the bells 
could contend with such a conundrum in so simple 
a way. He gave the bell one last shake. The 
eighth tone gushed like a wave from the clapper 
and the bore, his entire arm shimmering so that 
it seemed to fade in and out of the lamplight. 
Berchem's eyes widened once, and then he 
collapsed unconscious sprawled across the quilt.

James lifted the bell to his lips and kissed 
fervently, licking the bore as he gasped for 
breath. He rubbed its smooth surface across his 
muzzle, and pressed the crack down across his 
nostrils. Thick lips felt along the edge of the 
crack, while his tongue explored within, wrapping 
around the clapper as the tones rang across his 
ears in ascending arpeggios. Within he could feel 
the ninth tone glimmering with ineffable 
potential, the final tumbler to some esoteric lock.

So shake the very Heaven on high with tumult!

James withdrew his tongue and lips from the bell 
and slowly let the brazen instrument fall to his 
side. “With Baerle,” he said softly, his vision 
racing with dreams of the opossum wrapped in his 
arms. He smiled and fancied pressing his lips to 
her snout, her neck, her breasts each in turn. 
And then lower. Oh how he longed for that day 
when she would fancy doing the same and more for him.

He reposed in such sweet reverie for nearly a 
minute before the donkey finally glanced around 
the small home. Other than the bell he'd brought 
nothing else with him. He knelt down and picked 
up the skunk's tunic and breeches. These he 
folded quickly and placed next to the pallet where they were in easy reach.

James turned to the stairs but paused after 
taking a deep breath and recognizing his own 
earthy musk in the air. While there were several 
other equines who lived at the Glen, a few 
donkeys amongst them, no one would mistake James's scent for theirs.

But lo, a stir is in the air!

James nodded to the unseen presence. He noted the 
two windows in either side of the small home, 
then turned his attention on the hearth. James 
struck the flint a few times before he was able 
to light the kindling. He nursed the little flame 
with his breath until it contentedly consumed the 
brush available. James spread more kindling, then 
added a few larger logs. The fire would last through most of the night.

Cradling the bell in one hand, he crossed back to 
the skunk, and gingerly rolled him within the 
heavy quilts to keep him warm. Satisfied, he 
turned to the lantern atop its stand and 
extinguished the wick. The crimson glow from the 
hearth cast strange shadows across the room, but 
James paid them no mind. He cracked each window 
two finger widths, allowing a cool crisp breeze 
to circulate. With it he could almost feel his scent washing away.

James double checked the quilts covering the 
skunk one last time before climbing the stairs 
and closing the door behind him. He returned the 
bell to his pack and hummed to himself as he 
walked through the Glen, letting the torches in 
the commons guide him along his way. The donkey's tail even swayed.

----------

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

Charles Matthias


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