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

[C. Matthias]

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

Pars IV: Infernus

(j)

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR

And sat bolt upright in a comfortable bed. 
Sitting in a wicker chair was a handsome fox 
dressed as a hunter with knives in his vest. He 
held a flute in his paw-like hands and blew from 
his narrow snout that delicate melody. The room 
around them was bathed in the warm colors of 
autumn, but these colors were comfortable to the 
eyes. For once there did not appear to be any 
pain or anything strange about the sensations. 
Everything felt right from the touch of the 
quilts on fur, to the scent of cooking flesh and 
steaming vegetables, to the sound of the fox's 
gentle melody as if it had been something beloved from youth.

The handsome fox blinked open soft blue eyes and 
his snout opened in a smile that seemed to span 
years. He lowered the flute and a long sigh 
escaped his throat. “Mechtilde. Is it you at last?”

“Mechtilde?” Blinking and glancing downward, a 
new surprise came. Sitting in the bed and draped 
in a soft-white nightgown was the body of a 
red-furred vixen and not the rat expected. She 
blinked, trembling a moment as she lifted 
black-furred paw-like hands; she turned them over 
and then touched her narrow fang-filled snout. 
Triangular ears perked on either side of her 
head. A soft, luxuriant tail was tucked between 
her legs. She was not a rat as her memories suggested, but a vixen.

The fox rose from the wicker chair and came to 
her side, taking her right hand in his own and 
holding it to his chest. She could feel strong 
muscles beneath his warm fur. His gaze was filled 
with tenderness, patience, weariness, and love. 
She felt both vulnerable and assured in that 
gaze. “Is the curse broken, Mechtilde? I'm here. Your Kinder is here.”

“I'm Ma...” the name slipped from her mind. The 
voice she heard was familiar. Kinder was a name 
that resonated deep within her and stirred 
feelings of love and memories. The name she 
thought she'd had and the memories associated 
with it felt like errant flies that deftly 
escaped her paws. She could glimpse them, even 
take them in as a whole, and a whole life they 
seemed to span, but she could not linger upon any of them.

Kinder slipped his other arm around her back, 
through the long locks of braided fur between her 
ears, and rested his strong hand upon her 
shoulder. “Oh please, Mechtilde, tell me you're 
back to me. I have missed you so.”

“I... I don't understand,” she murmured, feeling 
lost and alone despite the comfortable surrounding and heartening fox.

Kinder pulled her into an embrace so that her 
snout rested against his chest. She could hear 
his voice, strong and certain build within amidst 
the pounding of his heart. “There was a curse on 
you, my sweet Mechtilde. A curse laid by the 
Rats! You thought yourself one of them no matter 
what we did. No matter what... I did.” A profound 
sadness filled him and Mechtilde felt a horror 
overcome her. How could she see an entire life's 
memory of a man who'd become a rat and have it 
only be a curse. This could not be!

And so she said, pushing against Kinder, shaking 
her head and trembling anew. “No, this cannot be! 
I... I am not a fox. I am not a vixen.”

“You are,” Kinder assured her, his snout opening 
into an inviting smile. She met his gaze and felt 
a warmth come to her. He was so handsome and sure 
of himself. His eyes were radiant like a deep 
lake warmed by hot springs. A part of her wanted 
to believe him. “You are not only a fox and a 
vixen, but you are my wife, Mechtilde. My wife of 
ten years now. Please tell me you remember! Do not break my heart again!”

She blinked and tried to remember, looking first 
at the memories of the rat, but they seemed to 
drift even further away now. Instead, what she 
found when she looked within were memories of a 
fox, a vixen true. Snatches of time as a little 
kit playing in the woods with her brothers and 
sisters rushed back to her. The first time she 
had met Kinder at a festival, staring across the 
fields at each other, neither daring to say a 
word to each other or even trying to approach, 
brought a smile to her snout and a twitch to her 
tail as it returned. She felt her heart warm as 
she remembered the first time they had danced 
together, minstrels playing the very tune Kinder 
had just serenaded her with. She almost wept when 
she felt anew the sorrow of losing their first 
kit even before he had been born, and did let go 
tears when the memory of their second kit's death 
from sickness came back to her.

She was Mechtilde, wife to Kinder the huntsman, 
and this was their home in the village at the 
edge of the forest. And yet, the memory of the 
rat remained. How could it have all just been a 
curse? The love the rat felt for his wife and family was so real and so tender.

Still, in those memories she could hear her 
husband's song, and she could her hear own voice speaking. What had happened?

“I... I do remember, Kinder. I do,” she admitted 
with a long sigh. “I'm... I'm just very confused right now.”

Kinder took a deep breath and then nodded, 
wagging his black-tipped tail. “I should not 
expect any less. I am overwhelmed with relief to 
have you back, my sweet. There is some food 
cooking, can I bring you something?”

She slipped out of the bed and set her paws on 
the ground, testing the feel of her legs. They 
felt weak, but not so weak that she could not 
stand. “It smells delicious,” she said with a 
winsome smile to her husband. By the gods was he 
handsome! The way his smile turned the red fur of 
snout and cheeks, and the little raising of his 
ears, it all made her heart flutter. A part of 
her seemed to assure her that with such desire 
for her husband there could be no doubt which set 
of memories was true. “Take me to it.”

She held out her hand and he grasped her paw in 
his. Little black claws pricked through the fur 
at their wrists, as callused palms rubbed 
together. They stepped around the bed, and then 
side by side their fingers threaded together. He 
stood a head taller than she, and his shoulders 
were broad with the rigors of outdoor life. She 
felt drained, and knew that in years past she had 
a healthy plump that the years of madness had 
sapped from her. Kinder was strong and would support her.

Mechtilde and Kinder stepped out of the bedroom 
through a cloth-covered door and into a modest 
chamber with a fire and grill on which a iron 
platter was set. Strips of flesh sizzled there 
and the heat of the fire made her feel flush 
again. Rows of cushions dotted the far wall, and 
a wooden doorway stood between two windows 
through which autumn light entered. Another 
doorway stood off beyond the firepit, this one 
banded with iron. Something rattled within. Her 
nose wrinkled with a faint scent of refuse and blood.

“Come and sit,” Kinder invited as he guided her 
toward the cushion. She reclined, grateful for 
the softness. Her legs were weak, but the 
strength would return in time. The scent of 
cooked meat made her ravenous. The scent of 
refuse felt familiar as well and did not bother 
her. As her husband took an earthenware bowl and 
scooped the strips of meat and seared vegetable 
within she realized that both scents mixed 
together had come to her in the final moments of 
the rat madness as well as her husband's melody. 
This he whistled from his curved tongue as his 
deep blue eyes cast quick glances to her, 
confidant and gentle, ears upturned and handsome.

He filled a second bowl with what remained on the 
iron platter and added a log to the fire before 
bringing both bowls to where she reclined. 
Mechtilde took the offered bowl in both paw-like 
hands and cradled them so that her thumb claws 
just gripped the edges. Kinder sat cross-legged 
with black-tipped tail swishing behind him, 
facing her over the lip of his bowl, snout 
lowered ever so slightly in a whispered prayer 
her ears inclined but could not catch. She felt 
entirely too famished to try and recall any 
prayers, but waited until her husband finished.

“Eat my love, my sweet Mechtilde come back to me. 
Eat.” So saying he dipped his snout into the bowl 
and began to gorge on the meat and vegetables 
within. She held the bowl to her snout, ravenous 
from the scent, and began to east as well. The 
meat had a stringy quality and a well-seasoned 
flavor that stirred her memories. She did not 
ponder what sort of meat it was until her tongue 
lapped the insides of the bowl to capture all of the juices.

She had just eaten rat. And not just rat, but 
meat strips from the tail of a rat.

A rattling sounded through the iron door and she 
turned her head, a sullen horror touching her. 
She thought of the rat the curse made her think 
to be and their family, the gentle love and the 
children they possessed but which she'd been 
denied. A sickness overcame her and she had to 
struggle to hold the bowl in her paws. She 
lowered it to keep it from breaking but it still 
fell and clattered on the wooden floor, spinning 
for a brief second before settling upright.

Kinder's ears lifted in question. “Are you well, Mechtilde?”

She stammered, one paw clutching at her chest. “I... I just ate rat!”

Her fox husband smiled and a short chortle 
escaped his throat. “Of course my love. It is 
your favorite; it always has been. This is your 
own recipe passed down through your family.”

Mechtilde's horror increased, though her 
husband's gentle confidence sought to assure her. 
“But you said the Rats cursed me! This is not the flesh of just any animal!”

He reached out one paw and gripped her wrist, 
blue eyes limpid. “My love, the Rats did Curse 
you. There was a revolt among them, and they 
struck many of our people. They could not reach 
me, but before they were stopped and returned to 
their rightful place, they captured you and 
through you, struck at me. They have always been our food and always shall be.”

Mechtilde searched her memories and found 
everything her husband had told her was true. As 
a kit she had watched her parents kill captured 
rats, skin them, and then divide their flesh up 
for meat for a variety of recipes. She could even 
recall the day her dam had taught her how to make 
the choice cuts and how to properly season them 
so the meat would keep. Her heart fluttered 
weakly as she recalled her sire tending the pits 
where they raised the Rats. Their eyes stared 
back with hatred, the older ones clutching the 
young ones to their chest, wrapping them in their 
arms to protect them from the hooks and nets her 
sire used to draw them out before breaking or cleaving their necks.

And with those memories her head turned toward 
the iron door from which she could hear rattling. 
“Kinder, please, tell me this isn't real. What do we have behind that door?”

“It is how things are, my love,” he offered with 
a faint smile. “What they did to you still hurts 
you, I see. Come, let me show you.” He extended a 
paw and trembling she took it. They stood and 
crossed the small room to the iron door. The 
edges flecked with crimson rust. Kinder produced 
a brass key from inside his vest and slipped into 
the keyhole. He turned and a click sounded as the 
tumblers released. Mechtilde felt her heart jump 
and then fall silent in awe of the sound.

The room beyond was somewhat larger than their 
main room. One side was dominated by a stone cage 
with iron bars in which cowered five rats. 
Mechtilde stared at a mother rat, no taller than 
three feet, clutching around her four frightened 
children. One corner of the cage was filled with 
their filth, while bowls of fetid water and grain 
were placed in the other. The grain had not been 
disturbed. All of the rats appeared unhealthy as 
if they had barely eaten in weeks.

The other half of the room was dominated by a 
large table and basin on which was spread the 
body of a young rat. The head and skin were 
removed; the skin, white on the underbelly but 
black along the back, was stretched and drying 
against the wall, while the head, also skinned, 
was positioned on the cutting table so that its 
lifeless eyes watched the cage. Strips of salted 
meat hung from hooks, but some still remained to 
be cut free from the flesh. The tail was denuded 
so that only the sinew around the bones remained. 
Everything stunk of blood, filth, and death.

Kinder took one of the blades from his vest and 
made an expert cut through the flesh at the dead 
rat's ribs. “You see, my love? We have always 
eaten Rats. It is the way of we Foxes. The more 
you do the more you'll return to your true self 
and the faster their vicious curse will be wholly 
broken. Come, see for yourself. You know these 
cuts as well as I. You have made them all your 
life.” He offered her the knife and his handsome smile returned.

Mechtilde grasped the knife and stared at it. All 
of her memories showed her exactly what to do 
with the rat child's corpse. A faltering step 
brought her to the preparation table. She half 
turned so that she wouldn't see the rat mother 
and brood staring at her. The stretched skin 
stayed in the corner of her eyes. She trembled, 
wanting to please her husband, but horrified. It 
felt as if she were being asked to carve her own 
flesh. Kinder whistled that never-ending and 
always changing melody, one paw pressed to her shoulder.

A shadow besmirched the iron doorway and both 
their heads turned. Standing taller than the 
transom yet somehow unaffected by it was a 
pearl-gray skinned being with sharp, angular 
features. He was attired in rich silks filled 
with subtle colors. White hair cascaded from the 
dome of his head. Ancient eyes regarded her with 
sympathy, but were hard as steel toward Kinder.

“Do not put that knife to flesh if you ever wish 
to leave this place again. This is not your 
husband. You are not a vixen.” The voice, ageless 
and deep, brought the rat's memories to the fore 
again, and she knew him to be the companion 
guiding the rat through darkness. She yearned to 
trust him, but her memories of life as a vixen, 
and the attraction of Kinder, so dear to her, were hard to deny.

Still, his name came to her. “You are 
Qan-af-årael of the Åelf. How can you be real?”

“He is not,” Kinder snapped, a growl fetching his 
throat. “He is a liar! He would spin a false 
world about you, Mechtilde. Do not listen to him!”

“And you,” Qan-af-årael replied in an even but 
certain tone, eyes fixed upon the fox, “are Klepnos.”

Kinder blinked and shook his head. “Who? My name 
is Kinder. This is Mechtilde my wife. And you are 
a liar sent by the rats to steal her from me 
again! Get your vile presence from our home!”

But the Åelf paid him no more attention, merely 
staring at the vixen with a concerned moue. 
“Charles, he has lied to you and cast this net 
over you. Put down the knife and step away from 
him and the madness will leave. You will see true again.”

“Charles,” she murmured, looking over the red and 
black fur of her arms, legs and tail, and then 
down at the dead rat child on the preparation 
table. A moment ago she had scarfed down the meat 
from its tail and savored it. Now she felt like 
vomiting. The knife wavered in her hand.

“Mechtilde, please, let go of the what the rats 
did to you and stay here with me,” Kinder begged, 
his voice warm and smile fetching. Her heart 
fluttered with desire but it could not take 
flight. The dead rat, the scent of blood and filth, all of it balked her.

“Klepnos has spun an elaborate illusion about 
you, Charles. He wants you to let go because you 
are still holding my robes. If you let go of your 
past you will be consumed by him. Look at the 
rats in the cage. Look at the skin. That is your 
family. The skin is your son's.”

“He is lying to you. He is an ally of the rats 
who cursed you. I am your family,” Kinder 
insisted. He stepped closer to her to get between 
her and the Åelf, lifting his arms as if to 
shield her from the interloper. “Just cut free 
some of the meat and you will put all of this behind you forever.”

She glanced at the skin stretched across the rack 
and imagined it still on the body of the rat dead 
before her. It would have been of a white rat 
with a black hood down its back. Glancing into 
the rat's memories she could see that very rat 
child and how dear he was. The very child the rat 
had been seeking and for which reason he had passed into the realm of Klepnos.

The name, so familiar to her, but unfamiliar at 
the same time, now came into clear focus. The 
firm touch of the fox's paw on her shoulder made 
her shudder, and she turned her head to stare at 
the rats in the cell. The mother, though naked 
and filthy with matted fur and scars, bore the 
countenance of the rat's wife. The four children 
with her also matched the memories that had been 
pressed away from her. A subtle glow, a ruddy hue 
somewhere between purple and red, pulsed steadily 
from a stone about the female rat's neck. Her 
dark gaze held the vixen, resigned to the fate 
that was before her and her offspring at the 
blade held in black-pawed hands. While Mechtilde 
stared at the captured feast the rat's paw stole 
up to grasp the stone about her neck.

“You are a fox, Mechtilde,” Kinder added softly, 
cold nose nuzzling against her ear. The melody 
breathed from his throat. “You eat rats. Show him 
that you do. Show him what you are.” A throb of – 
something – washed over the vixen, staggering her 
back a pace. The sudden emanation that was 
neither sound nor light nor anything Mechtilde 
could lay a thought upon to put a name to filled 
her – him! – with such a feeling of Love to which 
her husband the fox could not compare that the 
room seemed to list and, for only the briefest of 
moments, only the female rat seemed upright and 
Whole. The stone in the grasp of her small paw 
shone brightly, spears of purplish light leaking 
between her fingers as she became the bottom of a 
downward falling funnel for the blink of an eye, 
the beat of a heart. Into that wellspring of – 
something – Mechtilde felt herself – himself! – 
fall, only to jerk back when reality seemed to right itself.

She glanced down at the knife in her paw for 
several seconds and then closed her eyes tight. “No. No! I cannot!”

“You must or he will not leave us!”

She turned, putting the knife between her and 
Kinder, snarling at the edge of her jowl. “Why? 
If you are my husband, why do you not protect me 
from this stranger? Why is he still here if he is 
allied with the rats? Why must I choose?”

“Because he needs you to let go of me,” 
Qan-af-årael said in his measured but clear 
voice. “If you do not let go of me he cannot 
claim you for himself. You still clutch my robe, 
Charles, though your senses tell you otherwise.”

Kinder shook his head. “He lies to you for his 
own benefit. He will not leave this place unless 
he knows the curse on you is truly broken, 
Mechtilde, my love. That is why you have to prove 
to him that you are a fox once more. I could 
throw him out as many times as I like but until 
you choose he will keep coming back to torment us.”

“Klepnos, step back and let him decide.” Qan-af-årael challenged irritably.

Kinder sneered over his shoulder at the Åelf but 
he did take a step back. His snout favored 
Mechtilde with invitation and warmth. “I love 
you, Mechtilde. Do not listen to him. He is a 
liar and wants to destroy your world.”

Her ears perked at that, and her grip on the 
knife tightened. “ 'Your world'? Don't you mean, 
'our world'?” She tried to level her angry, 
surprised glare at her husband but the throbbing 
glow from the cage kept the corner of her eye and 
she could not bring herself to fully turn her gaze away from it.

The fox blinked and then nodded. “Aye, of course, 
our world. He will tear you from me again if you 
let him. Just help me prepare the rest of this 
rat meat and you'll never need worry about him or 
those terrible memories again.”

Qan-af-årael stared at her in silence awaiting her decision.

She glanced at the imprisoned rats one last time 
before turning back to Åelf and fox. A long sigh 
escaped her chest. The knife fell to the ground 
and she stepped over it toward Qan-af-årael.

The house vanished in that moment, and with it 
drained away the memories and form of Mechtilde. 
Blinking, the rat came to himself and realized 
that his left hand was still firmly grasping the 
silken robes draping his guide and protector. 
Kinder remained as the fox, but his countenance 
now bore a sadistic moue. He bared his fangs and 
snarled in frustration for a moment, before 
stretching his back and letting out an exasperated sigh.

“I tried. I wouldn't have driven you completely 
insane quite so quickly either. You would have 
had many years to enjoy life as Mechtilde first.” 
His blue eyes glinted with malice, “And you would 
have become quite adept at killing rats, 
especially their young, my sweet vixen! Hah! Even 
that silly female and her bauble!”

And then, the red fox jumped with a flourish 
before vanishing into a smear of gray. His 
laughter bounced around them before spreading in 
an ever widening curl that was sucked away into 
the distance, ever stretching and never-ending. 
Charles shuddered as the laughter lingered for 
nearly a minute before it too had been absorbed in the maelstrom beneath them.

“Where are we?” Charles murmured, searching 
through his thoughts to see what traces of the 
vixen remained. Little snatches of the images 
that Klepnos had placed there, and what had 
happened since he had woken in that bed, but 
nothing else was left. The sight of his family 
cowering in prison waiting to be skinned and 
chopped to bits to feed others made him burn with hatred for the mad daedra.

“We stand in witness to the reality of this 
place,” Qan-af-årael gestured at the wide disk of 
gray above which they seemed to hover. Charles 
recognized it from the brief flashes he saw when 
first arriving and after Hindemar ripped his own 
eyes out. Around them the disc curved, bending 
beneath them down into a darkness his eyes could 
not pierce. A whirlpool of immense proportions, 
the fluid of which was made from mortal souls all lost in madness.

“I would have ended up in there too?” Charles 
asked, swallowing heavily and tightening his grip on Qan-af-årael's robe.

“Not at first,” his guide replied with a gentle 
touch on his back. “You still have your flesh. 
Klepnos would have you believe you were whatever 
he wished you to be so long as he could. By the 
time your body finally died you would have been 
so completely insane that he would have been able 
to absorb every last mote of your being and leave 
what was left of your soul to be torn to the 
tiniest shreds in his maelstrom before losing it 
to the Beyond. He wanted you to kill your own 
family to make the break in your mind complete, 
and to get you to let go of the one thing that kept you from his clutches.”

“You,” Charles replied. He shuddered, took a deep 
breath, and then exhaled. He did it again but 
still he felt weak and strangely violated.

“I am sorry you had to endure that. But I dared 
not break Klepnos's hold on you until I knew we could leave.”

Charles blinked and looked up at him. “You found the bridge?”

He nodded, a slight gesture accompanied by a 
slender smile. “It is here and open. Step forward 
and we continue. I caution you, we are continuing 
downward. It will only grow worse.”

“But I have no choice. Nocturna waits for me 
above,” Charles grimaced, and then steeled 
himself. “I trust you to protect me, 
Qan-af-årael.” So saying, he stepped forward. The 
maelstrom beneath their feet tipped toward them 
as if they were falling into its depths. It 
rushed past with one final scream of insanity before the darkness took them.

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

Charles Matthias
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