[Mkguild] Divine Travails of Rats - Pars VI. Acceptio (g)

[C. Matthias]

Sorry I forgot to post yesterday.  It was a crazy day.

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

Pars VI: Acceptio

(g)

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR


His Master turned about the garden – there was no 
sign of the fissure through which they'd passed – 
until he was staring between two rivers toward a 
small rise beyond which the golden clouds were 
visible. A ray of light descended from the clouds 
filled with a scintillating radiance that left 
the patch of clover a cascade of different 
colors. Standing in the clover was a small 
human-shaped rat. The fur of his belly and arms 
was white, but his head and back were black as if 
he were draped with a cloak. His eyes, dark and 
warm, were filled with a clarity and benevolence that called to him.

It is your son, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. Reach out and 
bring him into the shadow and you will be one 
forever. This is what you have been seeking. This 
is my promise fulfilled to you.

Obedient, the shadow he was stretched forward to engulf the rat child.

An adoring smile stretched the rat's whiskers and 
cheeks. The voice was high-pitched and touched by 
an occasional squeak, yet it rang clear through 
his Master's ears. “Dada! Look at Momma! She loves you still!”

Balked, the shadow turned inward toward that 
single pinprick. Crushed into that hole in all 
that remained of his being was three images 
layered one atop the other. In each he saw a lady 
rat, beautiful and resplendent as the garden of 
light. Her hands and his were bound together by 
more than mere strength. Her voice, silent in the 
midst of the flames, now echoed within the melody 
of the birdsong that surrounded them.

“Charles beware! He is false!” The words echoed 
as if cried by every little creature hidden 
within the garden atop the mountain. He felt the 
stirring of anguish press against him once more.

You must choose, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. I have guided 
you to your son as I promised. That last crumb 
you have will be gone when you claim your son. If 
you do not you can never know the peace of 
shadow. You will instead suffer the anguish of 
flame for all eternity. I yearn to give you that 
peace, I have done everything I can to bring it 
to you. I have shown you what it will be like and 
allowed you a foretaste of it. But now you must choose.

“Dada,” his son said in a voice sweet and simple, “listen to Momma!”

Listen to me, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. Claim your son.

She had called him 'Charles'. His Master called 
him 'Núrodur Nuruhuinë'. She told him to beware. 
His Master counseled him to claim his son for the 
shadow. She told him that there was one who was 
false. His Master promised him either peace or pain for his choice.

Momma. The rat lady was the mother of his son. 
The mother who nurtured with love. The mother who 
enveloped life and bore such sweet fruit.

His Master. The caster of shadow and the will 
that seared flame through all. Through the shadow 
he was a bringer of death. Through the shadow he 
shrieked. All else was char and ash.

One true. One false. One choice.

He turned his thought between Son, Master, and 
Momma. The idea was shared with his Master as 
soon as it came to him. I cannot claim my son if 
I abandon his mother too. I cannot!

You do not need her anymore. You have me.

You... Master... who are you?

You know who I am. Now claim your son. It is the only thing you can do.

He rose upward from the shadow, a being coated in 
the darkness from which he'd sprung, and turned 
once more toward the rat child. One arm stretched 
outward. The hooded rat child made no move to 
avoid him, but only gazed where a face should be 
and smiled. “I love you, Dada. But Momma's right. He is false.”

He turned back to his Master and stared into his 
face as if seeing it for the first time. He was 
an Åelf of sterling beauty and porcelain 
countenance. Long silvery black hair descended 
across his shoulders and over ears drawn to 
exquisite points. Radiant eyes the color of a 
clear day's sky shone and shaped like perfect 
almonds gazed with implacable command back at 
him. Thin lips were set in a smile of magnanimous 
pleasure. There was no sense of age to him. He 
was permanent and ancient beyond reckoning. He was majesty itself taken form.

He was false.

Núrodur Nuruhuinë was the name of the shadow of 
his Master. Charles was the name of the rat boy's 
father. The two could not be the same. That was 
the choice his Master had set before him.

But he was not alone in having a name. It 
unfolded within him from between the images as if 
they were leaves pressed in a book. It sprang 
forth from his thoughts like a thunderclap. The 
fruit shook and the leaves rustled as of a strong wind gusting through.

You are Yajakali. As if Núrodur Nuruhuinë had 
thought nothing and did not speak the Åelf's 
countenance did not waver, his calm regard aloof 
in its stony neutrality. Unlike the forgotten 
concept of ant or squirrel, or the ragged memory 
he had pieced together to realize that he had a 
son through which he had suffered such torture to 
find, the name sprang unbidden, whole and clear within his thoughts.

Choose, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. Be mine ever more and 
claim your son for our work. All will be set aright.

No. I cannot.

He felt an intense pain beyond anything the light 
had struck him with before. It ravaged him 
through every mote and he screamed. It was not 
fire nor was it ice. It was nullity. It was 
consumption and the very touch of uncreation that 
ripped him apart in that endless moment. Even the 
images of the lady rat, Momma, were barely held 
in check as they were eviscerated by that awful power.

Turn and take your son!

Through the torment, the agony, the absence of 
being that scoured him as a stone in a cataract 
the lady rat held his hand, unphased. That grasp 
upon his fingers was an unwavering anchor and 
Núrodur Nuruhuinë felt himself drawn toward it 
though the shadow clung to him like a shroud.

Upon her bodice the stone remained, its cool 
purple light shrinking to a pinpoint of blinding brilliance.

No. I cannot!

Her hands were dismembered finger by finger until 
only a blank stump remained. One of her eyes became a hole of black.

Take your son! For me!

No! I cannot!

An ear was sliced to ribbons and her nose was 
swallowed inward like a crater. Her incisors shattered into daggers.

Claim your son! I am your Master!

No! I will not! No!

Momma's other ear was shredded and then removed 
entirely. Her left cheek was a cavity of black 
and both her eyes were caverns of shadow. Each 
whisker was yanked free. Only the stone remained untouched.

There is nothing left for you but me! You are Núrodur Nuruhuinë! You are mine!

Her face was finally obliterated by the fog of 
unmaking. He turned from that to stare into the 
stone hanging at her bodice. The flesh behind it 
had been riven free so it seemed only a beating 
heart gave it light. Yet he marveled. That light 
was enough. Within its fissures he saw her face 
pure and unmarred. He heard her voice singing to 
him as if from his very side. He saw her hands, 
delicate and tipped with little claws reaching 
out to him. He saw her tail swaying as she moved 
to his side. He saw her eyes bright with joy and 
overflowing with love. He saw children filling 
her arms. His children. Momma. His wife. Kimberly. Their family. Matthias.

He turned to the presence in whose shadow he was trapped.

No. I am not yours! I am Charles Matthias, 
husband to the Lady Kimberly, and father to 
Charles, Bernadette, Erick, Baerle, and Ladero! 
You are nothing to me! I reject you! I say to you, no! No! No!

A titanic scream that stretched beyond reckoning 
and that welled up from depths unimaginable blasted him to the ground.

----------

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

Charles Matthias
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