[Mkguild] Divine Travails of Rats - Pars IV. Infernus (d)

[C. Matthias]

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Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats
by Charles Matthias and Ryx

Pars IV: Infernus

(d)

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR


“What way is that?” Charles asked, turning from the prairie dog to the Åelf.

The pearl gray being smiled in a subtle but 
gentle way. “There are two additional ways to 
reach beyond. We are in what is known as the 
Axis. The heavens above and hells below, each 
realm being the demesnes of a particular aedra 
and daedra lord. The Axis serves as a means by 
which they harness spiritual energy and maintain 
their power. The Axis also serves as a way that 
they and their minions can easily move from one realm to the next.”

Craig nodded. “So I was told. But you cannot use 
the Axis. They guard all the entrances.”

“Their minions do guard the Axis and it would be 
very foolish to attempt to use it. But there is 
another way to pass from one realm to the next. 
Charles has already done so and I followed him 
here. At certain places in each realm, there are 
bridges that span the gap between them. Passages 
that siphon spiritual energies from lesser 
sources, that never passes through the Axis. 
Energy gained through lies, if you will, which 
sustains the darker spirits of the lower Hells 
whose worshipers are far fewer than those of the 
Aedra. If you can find one end of the bridge you 
can reach the next realm, either ascending to the 
heavens or descending through the hells. 
Understandably, there are more leading down than 
up. It does mean we must travel great distances 
in each realm to find the bridge. And there is no 
guarantee that a bridge will not be guarded.”

“Could we use these bridges to escape this 
place?” Craig asked, a curious wonder touching his voice.

“Not in great numbers,” Qan-af-årael admitted 
with a measure of regret, reserved but real. 
“Your night mistress will not take well to her 
livestock escaping. And the only bridge I know to 
enter the Dreamlands will be guarded by now. 
Nocturna knows the passage and will be waiting on 
the other side, ill-disposed at Charles' chicanery.”

“But how does this take us Beyond?” Charles 
pressed, shifting about and rubbing his tail where it had been

“The only ways Beyond are from the highest heaven 
and the lowest hell. Nocturna guards the way up. 
If you wish to go beyond, the only way is to go down.”

“Down?” Craig asked, his chittering voice rising 
an incredulous glare. “Down where it is an even 
worse than this place? Charles, think! You cannot risk that!”

He turned and stared at the Åelf for several 
seconds. Qan-af-årael's regard was calm and 
assured. There was no suggestion of fear in his 
angular features nor diffidence in his golden 
eyes. Charles felt a subtle affirmation in his 
friend's countenance. A faint smile stretched the 
rat's snout and cheeks; with this he returned to 
answer the prairie dog's admonition.

“I can and I must. If it is the only way then it 
is my way. Qan-af-årael is powerful even in death 
in ways we cannot imagine. I will be as safe as I 
can be here while in his company. I hope that I 
can have your help as well to reach the next 
bridge. I have no idea where it might be.”

“It is not far,” Qan-af-årael noted with a faint 
pinching of his lips. “I can see it in a way 
though I fear there will be danger to reach it as we must cross a plain.”

“The plain?” Craig stammered.

Charles blinked. “You know of it? What is it?”

“A place too dangerous to trod. If you think the 
beasts you've seen here in the forest are 
terrifying, then you cannot imagine what makes the plain its home.”

“If we are quick and subtle we should be able to 
reach the bridge with the denizens of the plain 
ignorant of our passage. We are small and not worth their regard.”

Craig shook his head and turned once more to 
Charles. There was actual agony in his expression 
as he held out his arms. “Charles, please, 
reconsider. I have never heard tell of anyone 
returning from the plain. It is better to spend 
eternity hiding in these holes and lightless 
forests than to dare the dazzle of a cloudless 
night for one twinkling star on that derelict plain!”

He could see his dead friend's anguish and for a 
moment felt some pity for him. But he steeled his 
reserve against such temptations and shook his 
head. “I am resolved to do this, Craig. You can 
either help me or not, but I would prefer your company a little while longer.”

“You are so stubborn!” Craig growled beneath his 
breath and shook his head, glaring down his 
snout. “I will not help you destroy yourself. Not 
I. If you intend to cross the plain then you must do it on your own.”

Charles stood and stretched. “Then I suppose we 
shall take our leave of you, supposing we have 
your permission to do that!” He asked, leveling a 
glower at his fellow rodent Keeper.

Craig reached out a hand and grabbed the rat by 
his tunic. “Charles, don't you understand? If you 
are killed here, your soul will not escape the 
daedra. You will be theirs to torment for as long 
as they wish. Do you understand this?” His angry 
words ended in a breathless hiss, the gaze in his 
dark eyes almost desperate with panic that his 
old friend realize the risks he already knew well.

Charles rested his hand atop the other, his claws 
pressing beneath each finger to pry them loose 
from his tunic. “I understand and I will risk. 
You cannot keep me here, and you certainly cannot keep Qan-af-årael here.”

Craig's face contorted with anger for a moment 
before the rictus melted and the prairie dog 
could do aught but release him. “Very well, if 
that is your wish. Before I show you the way, I 
must ask one thing of you, because once you leave 
this cavern it will not be safe to speak.” 
Charles nodded for his fellow Long to continue. 
“How are my wife and daughters? And... is Caroline all right?”

The rat's expression softened, and this time it 
was he who placed a paw on his friend's shoulder. 
“They are all well. Caroline was rescued and 
recovered and she visits your wife and daughters 
every week. I'm told the eldest just changed into a prairie dog like you.”

“Anna... a prairie dog like me?”

“She even has a little sable stripe down her back and tail.”

Craig's eyes brimmed with tears even as a smile 
of hope and warmth filled him. “My little... 
thank you, Charles.” He took a deep breath to 
steady himself, even wiping his cheeks and eyes 
with the back of his wrist. Once dry, those dark 
eyes fixed on the rat. “I will gather some of the 
others and we will show you both a secret way 
toward the plain. We will go no further than 
that. I can only hope that you are as fast and as unregarded as you claim.”

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Charles and Qan-af-årael remained in the little 
cave with leaf and feather mattresses. The rat 
played with the blue light dangling from the 
ceiling while they waited. He could make it curl 
around his claws but no matter what he did to it 
he never felt the slightest sensation of heat. He 
wondered if he could convince Kimberly to conjure 
a blue witchlight, and for a moment he felt a 
surge of love well in his heart. Her arms slid 
beneath his and her head pressed against his 
chest. Her warmth, her delicate scent, her inner 
strength, her very humility, all of it washed 
across him as if she were actually there.

And then he felt Qan-af-årael's steadying hand 
and the vision broke. “Your friend is returning.”

Craig and five human men stopped at the entrance 
to the little cave and waved for them to follow. 
Rat and Åelf were lithe on their feet, offering 
only a cursory glance at the array of bridges, 
lights and ladders filling the cavern. They 
stopped before an ominous dark hole leading away 
in a new direction and the prairie dog put a 
finger to his snout. “Charles, these are the last 
words you will hear us speak. If you have 
anything to ask, do so now because you will not speak again in this realm.”

He shook his head and swallowed. “I do not think 
there is anything I need. I trust you will not lead us awry.”

“Much as I wish to deter you from your course, I 
will not lead you falsely.” His shoulders rose 
and fell with a weary sigh. “Very well then, stay with us and say nothing.”

The eight of them plunged into the dark passage 
at a brisk pace. After the cool blue light of the 
cavern, the tunnel felt oppressive and complete 
in its darkness. Charles felt a twinge of 
claustrophobia and could not help but recall the 
bleakness of the tunnel beneath Metamor that took 
them all the way to the forested hills north of 
Glen Avery. At least then they had brought lights 
to illumine the pearl black walls. Here he had 
only the sensation of those around him brought to 
him by his whiskers to guide him.

But his eyes adjusted after a few minutes, and 
soon he recognized the overhanging walls of 
roots, dirt and stone as much the same they had 
seen on their way down into the caverns. After a 
time that may have been five or fifty minutes, 
they emerged from the tunnel into a dense forest 
of oak and beech intermingled with nose-tickling 
pine. All of them tensed and wrapped their hands 
about axes and heavy clubs. Charles wrapped one 
hand about the shrunken haft of his Sondeshike 
tucked into his tunic as he warily glanced above and to every side.

The perpetual gloom of the night mistress's 
demesnes had returned and with it he felt his 
tongue fix fast to the roof of his mouth. Not a 
murmur would pass the rat's lips while they 
remained here. He could only hope that the bridge was not far away.

Craig led them through a series of winding hills 
and down a small slope, staying always within a 
little cleft that protected them on either side. 
Charles sniffed the air afraid that the 
five-headed monster would be waiting to ambush 
them, but he never detected that sweet odor nor 
any others save the prickling of the trees. And 
where the trees of Glen Avery felt safe and 
comforting, these felt ominous, as if they 
resented the passage of anything at their feet.

When the cleft finally opened out and the hills 
stopped, Craig and the other humans did as well. 
Craig offered Charles a few scouting signs and 
the rat knew that this was as far as they would 
go. Charles signed that he understood before 
clasping the prairie dog one last time. Craig 
returned the gesture with a firm and determined 
grin, holding Charles by the shoulders at arm's 
length for a moment. With a smile he nodded his 
head slowly for his old friend to go in peace 
before incongruously sketching a brief sign of 
the Tree upon his own breast to wish Charles 
well. Without a word or a whisper of sound he and 
the humans all melted back into the shadows 
within the cleft, wary eyes ever watching above.

Together, Charles and Qan-af-årael continued in 
the direction his friend had gestured. The trees 
continued at their lofty, impenetrable height for 
several minutes more before coming to an abrupt 
end. Even the gloom of darkness seemed to lift, 
offering them a view that stretched for miles 
before them. And so too did the plain, vast and 
endless and completely flat, it stretched from 
the boundary of wood until consumed by the 
darkness in the distance. Charles turned to the 
Åelf who appeared to be concentrating, as if his 
eyes could pierce not just shadow but earth and rock as well.

The moment lasted only a few seconds before the 
Åelf offered Charles an affirming nod, angular 
features betraying nothing of what he felt. As 
one they stepped out onto the plain, their 
strides purposeful and their aim sure. Tall 
blades of grass rose up on all sides to the rat's 
waist, and its velvet touch made his tail shudder 
with a chill. The earth beneath their feet was 
soft as if it had rained a few days before.

After only a few minutes of walking Charles 
glanced behind them to see that the forest was 
only a smear on the horizon. If he stared above 
them he could discern a blanket of clouds, but 
all else was lost in the darkness. How anything 
at all grew here he neither wanted to nor could 
he fathom. The only thing that remained different 
in the sea of grass where every blade looked the 
same as all the rest was his friend. He walked as 
closely as he could to the Åelf.

They traveled this way for some time without 
sight, sound, or scent of anything else on the 
plain with them. Charles had no way of knowing 
how long it was except that it felt far longer 
than their journey from the caverns to the edge 
of the forest. His body ached in strange ways, as 
if his muscles were sore though he was in no need 
of rest. He continued to put one paw before the 
other, tail curled close to his back to keep it 
from brushing against the grass, and hoped they'd reach the bridge soon.

By the time it started they could see nothing but 
the plain in all directions. Whatever sense that 
Qan-af-årael had to find the bridge led them 
inexorably forward, though what direction forward 
was Charles had no idea. He dare not leave the 
ancient one's side for even a moment lest he 
become lost in a field of grass in which every 
direction looked exactly the same. And just as 
the paranoia of an endless sea of grass began to 
burrow into his heart, he felt a faint tremble in the ground.

The first few he dismissed as the fluttering of 
his heart. But its pace did not match the beat 
within his breast like a fist jabbed between his 
lungs; it was slower, heavier, and felt 
altogether distant and separate. It pressed 
through the callused flesh of his long toes and 
narrow feet with a single broad pulse, rising up 
through his legs, hips, chest, head, until it 
rebounded from the tips of his ears back down to 
vibrate every scraggly hair growing from his 
tail. A few seconds later, its energy spent, the 
pulse would come again but with greater vigor.

It was getting closer.

Qan-af-årael touched the rat on the shoulder as 
they walked and then extended his arm ahead of 
them. He pointed at something in the distance and 
Charles squinted as he tried not to dwell on the 
ever-growing thrum of the earth beneath them. In 
every direction he saw only the tall grass 
swaying with a wind he could not feel. But where 
the Åelf pointed he saw something gray smearing 
the horizon as if they were nearing some 
structure that rose up from the plain. The bridge?

With another jolt beneath his paws, Charles 
stepped faster than before, pushing the grass 
aside with his hands in his anxiety. Qan-af-årael 
matched his pace and then resumed his position 
just ahead to lead them both by whatever 
invisible arrow he followed. The trembling of the 
earth carried with it a sullen echo now, as of 
something impossibly heavy. Charles turned his 
ears to listen for it, all the while keeping his 
eyes on the gray something ahead of them.

What was before them grew in size as they 
continued to move faster. But louder still the 
footfalls coming toward them. After a minute 
Charles felt convinced that whatever it was 
approached from their left. He turned his head 
that direction for a moment and immediately 
wished he hadn't. In the distance still and 
wrapped in shadows so that he could make out 
nothing but an outline were two legs so large 
that even the redwoods they climbed through were 
but saplings in comparison. The legs rose up into 
the gloom and there the rat could see nothing but 
a senseless shifting of line and contour. 
Shapeless and amorphous yet with mass beyond 
reckoning, whatever this abomination was, it headed straight for them.

Gasping and nearly choking as he tried to catch 
his breath, Charles grabbed Qan-af-årael's sleeve 
and gestured wildly with his left arm at the 
perfidious horror. The Åelf glanced that way, and 
the gray of his face blanched.

They ran.

The gray mass to which they ran grew before them, 
spreading out in a wide arc before them though 
still distant. The legs strode with unerring 
malevolence, thundering with each step so that 
the ground now shook and threatened to tumble 
them over. Charles felt queasy from the almost 
rolling lurch of the earth as he tried to stay 
upright and on course. He wanted to avert his 
eyes from the doom stalking them, but with 
hapless perversity his left eye ever trailed to 
those gargantuan legs. The outline of their shape 
had at first seemed smooth at a great distance, 
but as they neared the rat could see that they 
were anything but. Almost liquefied in their 
peculiar shape, they flowed and gibbered as if 
composed of thousands of gaping mouths, opening 
to moan and ooze, before slipping shut with 
nebulous almost turgid insouciance. Those maws 
heaved and spewed mucous, murmuring obsequious 
and insane slobbering cries. The only solid thing 
he could see on those legs was the black, cloven 
hooves which were drenched in the leprous puss 
squishing out of each suppurating rent in its rubbery flesh.

Charles ran as fast as his legs allowed him.

The gray smear ahead of them took on structure 
and soon Charles was able to discern its shape. 
Rising a short distance into the sky it appeared 
to be an ordered collection of stone slabs each 
over a hundred paces in length on their long side 
and twenty paces on their short. These were 
layered together cross-ways to create a large 
stepped pyramid that rose at least fifty feet 
into the sky. It may have been higher but the 
gloom was too deep that far up for the rat to see 
clearly. Qan-af-årael guided them around to the 
right, one hand outstretched but never touching the stone.

The towering beast was now so close that Charles 
did stumble with every one of its steps. He could 
hear more than just that thunderclap of each hoof 
striking the ground and flattening the grass. 
Above the length of its legs where his eyes could 
not see he heard the yammering palpitations of 
its pitiless mouths and something more. It 
sounded like the sliding of fish-like blubber 
over one atop another as if the whole upper body 
were a writhing and shapeless mass. And it was a 
mass that Charles was thankful disappeared behind 
the stone pyramid as they raced around to the right side.

Qan-af-årael stopped abruptly halfway along the 
length of an otherwise unremarkable slab of 
stone. Charles felt an inchoate desire to plunge 
himself into the protected depths of stone, but a 
horrible vision of his substance trapped with 
only to be slobbered for aeons by profane 
tentacled evils slaughtered the nascent thought. 
The Åelf bent toward one section of the stone and 
extended his arms, fingers tracing invisible 
runes in the air as his eyes narrowed. Charles 
clutched to his robes like a frightened child to 
his mother as the beast began to move around the 
pyramid. His legs felt like jelly, and it was 
only the Sondeck that kept him from falling into 
a pile and quivering like a feral rat.

He gasped aloud when above them the gloom parted 
like a rent in fabric. The clouds broken asunder 
and the sparkling blue light of stars danced 
above, bringing with it a moon's illumination 
across the pyramid and the field of grass. 
Invisible before, runes of a particularly 
loathsome sort, suggestive of violence and blood, 
reflected that pale light all across the stone 
slabs in a profusion that scattered the remaining gloom for miles around.

Charles chanced a glance upward, stunned and 
blinded by the radiance, and then shrieked, 
shrinking in on himself with Metamor's curse to 
make himself a normal rat. His tunic, breeches, 
and cape grew loose as he shrank inch by inch 
away from the horror now revealed in full. Rising 
to a titanic height lost amidst the remaining 
clouds, the legs, a sickly pale hue, were joined 
to a writhing mass of tentacles each of which 
seemed to be fashioned from smaller interwoven 
tentacles. Now that it was leaning over them he 
could smell the charnal miasma of unearthed 
graves. Two of the tentacles slid down across the 
stones, leaving a trail of mucus, before pressing 
into the ground and withering the grass, sliding 
with a gasping, sucking sound toward them. Their 
width would pulverize them before smothering them 
in its grip. With luck they would be dead before 
they were squeezed to jelly and smeared into the 
gaping mouths drooling a chalky puss.

Insensible from fear, the rat shrank down as if 
he could make himself small enough to be of no 
notice. Another tentacle slithered its way down 
the pyramid of evil light, its tip, a corpuscular 
amalgamation of little mouths all opening and 
spluttering, aimed for them without err. A hand 
grasped Charles on the back and thrust him 
forward toward a yawning opening within the stone 
slab. A hideous gibbering peal erupted above them 
before the darkness swallowed them whole.

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

Charles Matthias
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