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

[C. Matthias]

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

Pars VI: Acceptio

(j)


Wednesday, June 23, 724 CR, Evening


Charlie felt overwhelmed by all that he heard. 
Several times as they walked through the festival 
crowds gathered to celebrate the final night he'd 
stubbed his toes on the paving stones trying to 
avoid them so distracted was he by his father's 
discourse. Everything that had been revealed in 
the last two days circled in his mind; many 
questions he'd had for the founder of House 
Matthias were answered though some of those 
answers left him with new questions he had never before thought to ask.

But there was a question – the question – which 
remained unanswered. When his father said nothing 
more for several long seconds he dared to give 
voice to it. “I do not believe I will ever be 
able to understand all you went through, Father, 
but of the one thing that matters most to me I do 
not know any better now than I did before. How is 
it I am a Sutt and not a Matthias?”

They walked down the main thoroughfare through 
Keeptowne leaning in toward one another that 
their voices might be heard over the cacophony of 
the crowd. Keepers of all shapes and sizes 
thronged the streets and the stomping of their 
boots, paws, and hooves upon the fitted-stone was 
drowned by their voices all shouting in an 
attempt to be heard by the Keeper beside them. 
The crowd was thick enough that the two rats were 
jostled from time to time as they walked, and at 
times their passage was blocked by a carriage or 
wagon trying to fight its way through. Keepers 
and visitors from beyond the valley milled this 
way and that through the choked streets. Some 
rushed between the many vendors whose prices had 
now dropped that they might rid themselves of 
their wares. Others were trying to find the inns 
and taverns to continue their celebrations. And 
some had gathered just to cheer the Duke and the 
other nobility as they had ridden back to the Keep.

Many of them, including both rats, lifted their 
eyes to gaze at the evening sky. The sun had 
descended behind the Dragon mountains and now the 
clouds overhead were bathed in an orange light, 
even as the sky above darkened to indigo. Summer 
sunsets were always breathtaking and both rats 
kept silent for a moment more as they enjoyed the 
sight. Charlie wondered how close it came to what 
his father had seen at the top of the spire in the beyond.

But the question had been asked and neither 
crowds nor beauty could forestall its answer for 
long. After several seconds admiration, Baron 
Matthias let his gaze slide back to the crowds 
ahead of them. He slowly shook his head and 
dropped his whiskers. “I told you this story so 
that you would understand better what you saw in 
my dreams. I did not sell you to Nocturna. I did 
not! The corruption of Marzac guided my actions. 
You were not sold, my son. You never were. Your adoption came later.”

Charles lifted one hand to still the next 
question before it leaped from his son's throat. 
“And as for Nocturna herself, I cannot speak to 
her motives. I have neither sought her again nor 
heard word from her again. You commune with her 
because of your gift, but I do not. You will have 
to ask her yourself.” The hand lowered to his 
vest where it gripped the lapel. “It would be 
another year before we knew we had to give you to 
Malger. After all I have told you took place, I 
told both him and your mother of your ability 
with dreams and we agreed that he would train 
you, but in time we learned that alone was not 
enough. You needed to be his son that he might 
protect you in the way only he could.”

Charles took a deep breath and lifted his eyes 
toward the towers of the Keep. The sky above the 
top-most towers was clear, but the light from 
scattered clouds cast the gray stone in a somber, 
bronze warmth. “Your father described for us what 
you would experience as you grew the day after my 
ordeal. The Sondeck had given me an anger I could 
not control. The Dream exposed you to every 
frightening terror that anyone near you 
experienced in their sleep; worse, it gave you 
the temptation to interfere in the dreams of 
those you loved, an interference that could harm 
both you and the dreamer. You know this better than I do.”

“Aye,” Charlie agreed. He could not recall a time 
in his life without the Dream and so its dangers 
and his precautions were instinctual. Other than 
Bryn, he'd never tried explaining it to anyone 
else, and Bryn had understood only after several 
attempts. Had his father and mother truly understood that day?

As if answering his unspoken question, the Baron 
continued. “I do not believe we truly appreciated 
what you would undergo, but we could not have 
given you up then. Malger returned to Metamor 
later that day to give us time to ponder what 
should be done. I spent the next few days with 
you when I wasn't out dealing with the injuries I'd caused.”

“Like Silvas?”

“Aye. I visited the shepherd and made recompense 
for the ewe I killed. And I promised him that 
none would ever molest his flock on my lands again.”

“And Bertram?”

Charles grimaced. “I never did anything to him, 
praise Eli, but aye I did bring you children down 
to the lake to play with him at Gibson's home.” 
The moue lifted and with it his whiskers until a 
smile emerged on his snout. “You each took to 
swimming far better than I did at your age! I can 
still remember the way you all splashed about and 
used your tails to glide like little otters! 
Bertram was so happy to have you as playmates. 
After we returned from Sondeshara he and Erick 
became close, inseparable friends; Erick needed 
another boy to play with now that you were at 
Metamor; he needed a brother. And when Bertram 
was old enough I took him on as a squire but that was many years later.”

Charlie nodded as he listened. Somebody had 
started up a cheer in the crowd just outside a 
workman's tavern fronting the street and dozens 
had gathered to join. Charlie lowered his head so 
his ears were beside his sire's snout that he might hear over the roar.

“But much of what I hoped to do had to wait. Only 
four days after the ordeal Lindsey and Pharcellus 
returned from Arabarb carrying my friend Jerome.” 
A distant look crossed his eyes and his whiskers 
backed against his cheeks as if he were snarling 
at something. “I could do nothing to help Jerome 
as they'd hoped. My ability with the Sondeck had 
always been used for combat; he needed healing. I 
knew after only a few minutes that Jerome's only 
hope was to be taken to Sondeshara where the 
masters of Sondecki healing could examine him.

“And when I knew this, I knew of what my friend 
Ladero had truly spoken when he told me that I 
had to set things right. Many years before I had 
abandoned the Sondeckis. Now I had to return and 
accept the consequences for my dereliction. But I 
was not going to be separated from you and your 
brother, your sisters, and your mother; not after 
losing little Ladero while at Marzac; not again. 
And so I asked your father if he could help us. 
Not only did he have the contacts, the position, 
and the wealth to make a sea voyage possible for 
a family of Keepers, but he also could train you 
in the Dreaming while we journeyed.

“The prospect of a happier adventure appealed to 
him and so he readily agreed. What I had thought 
would be a simple matter turned into a much 
larger venture as he brought your mother 
Misanthe, and several servitors along, as well as 
hired the sea bird brothers as messengers. And of 
course, we had Jerome, Garigan, and two dragons 
in our company so you can imagine it was a 
significant undertaking! I left James in charge 
of the Narrows during my absence; I wished he 
could have come with us but he was the only I 
could trust with my lands. Despite all the 
arrangements that had to be made, it only took a 
short time make each of them and to gather the 
necessary supplies; we waited at Metamor for 
about two weeks before we could begin. And, to my 
delight, I was able to help one of those I'd seen 
suffering in the hells during the wait; also as Ladero had promised!”

Charlie began to ask who it might have been but 
his father did not pause in his retelling. “And 
then by June we headed south and with your father 
and mother, their servitors, the bird messengers, 
a pair of dragons and my friends, we began the 
long journey by sea to Sondeshara. And it was on 
that journey that your abilities truly manifested 
themselves, and the painful – very painful – 
choice to give you to Malger as a son was made. I 
knew it would have to be made by the time we left 
Sondeshara but it was not until we neared the 
ports of Menth that all of us understood, accepted, and agreed to it.”

Charlie remembered that other image he'd seen in 
his sire's dreams, of the pier and the bargains 
made over the vessel that took them south. A 
slight smile touched his whiskers as he 
remembered his father, Malger Sutt, cradling him 
when he'd been just a little rat. “You've told me 
some of that journey before. I... I would very 
much like to hear the rest some day.”

One of Charles' eyes lifted. “Not today?”

He shook his head and could not help but chuckle. 
“No, no. I can wait to hear the rest. I can 
wait.” He shouldered past a goat bent over 
laughing at some unheard joke. In that moment, 
Charlie could not help but wonder how many others 
had heard even a fraction of his sire's tale. How 
many dark secrets had he forced the man who'd 
given him life, and who had been forced to give 
him up, relive over the last two days? How many 
dark thoughts had he harbored against that same 
man whose sufferings he'd now sampled? With each 
question Charlie felt an anxious regret weigh 
upon his heart. “Father, I... I am sorry.”

“And you've been forgiven, son. You don't need to apologize any more.”

“Not for that; I know you've forgiven me my 
foolish anger. I mean, I am sorry I made you 
relive all of this. I had no idea...”

Charles patted his back and chortled. “Again, you 
are forgiven, my son. What you saw had to be 
explained. I would have been hurt more had you 
not asked. And remember, with as much evil as I 
witnessed, I also saw a good greater than all of 
it combined. That solace, and the bounty of the 
life I've been given since, has always helped me 
turn the nightmares back. And Kimberly...” His 
father sighed and for the first time it seemed to 
be one filled with peace. “Your mother has always 
been able to quiet the storm. I owe her more than 
my family – more than you. I owe her my sanity. I owe her my peace.”

He sucked in his breath. Despite standing taller 
than his father, for a moment he felt much 
smaller. “Does... does Erick know these things too?”

“Which things? He knows his father and mother 
love each other and need each other and that they 
both love him and his brothers and sisters. He 
does not know all of our pains. And neither do 
you, my son. You do not know all of the pains 
Malger and Misanthe have either. And one day you 
will also have a wife and children; they will not 
know all of the pains you and she share. Nor the 
joys. It is the way of families.”

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

Charles Matthias
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