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

[Jason Gillespie]

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

Pars IV: Infernus

(q)

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR


The bridge swept past in the blink of an eye and 
Charles struck hard against a bright yellow road. 
He groaned and gasped for breath as he lay there, 
his teeth rattled by the jarring impact, pain 
throbbing through his entire body. But as he lay 
there those pains faded to aches and his racing 
heart slowed along with the rapid whoops of his 
gasping breath. For several seconds he did 
nothing but lay where he had come to rest, 
staring at the rough surface of the incongruously 
yellow road upon which he sprawled.

As the pain ebbed he began to notice two things 
for which he felt a swell of gratitude.

The first was that his flesh was whole again. The 
burns that had seared his left side were no more; 
healed as thoroughly as if they had never 
occurred. His ear, savaged by terrible claws, was 
whole and unblemished and his tail – severed most 
cruelly – had been restored. Qan-af-årael had 
promised his tail would return and so it had! 
Every terribly injury had been reversed, every 
scratch and bruise he had suffered in the savage 
daedra's arena – gone utterly. Charles pulled the 
tip of his tail to his snout and pressed it 
against his cleft lips in a delighted kiss.

The second thing he noticed was that the 
suffocating red that had infested both the earth 
and the air in the violent daedra's realm was 
gone. The surface of the yellow road upon which 
he had come to rest, and his eyes had been 
staring at fixedly during the long moments he 
waited for the pains to fade and his heart to 
slow, appeared to be of a single material. There 
were no stones, nor seams to indicate stone or 
brick or anything else, but whatever it was made 
of defied Charles' understanding. It was neither 
gold, nor sulfur, or anything he knew. Charles, 
remembering the chain and collar, was loathe to reach within to learn more.

Taking his tail in both hands Charles levered 
himself up to take in the new vista into which 
had had been cast with such brutal strength his 
arrival had left a furrow in the soft grass for 
almost ten paces before reaching the road upon 
which he had finally come to rest.

Grass.

Green, verdant, welcoming. The smell of it had 
been in his nostrils since arriving but only as 
his eyes took in the terrible wound left by his 
arrival – though no bridge or other means of 
entry were visible – did the unmistakeable 
reality of that smell strike him. The soft lawn 
of nearly tended grass begged him to lie in it 
and simply let his cares fade away. Charles felt 
himself leaning toward it, furrow of churned 
earth notwithstanding, to do just that.

Catching himself, Charles reared back in surprise.

Where was he, after all?!

Shifting to his knees and then standing, the pain 
of his travels and battles faded, Charles looked around.

He had come to a sprawling stop in what appeared 
to be a sizable courtyard bounded on one side by 
a hedge that towered twice his own height, a 
single gap offering welcome entry into he assumed 
was merely a garden labyrinth. Pavilions of the 
sort he'd find in a southern Pyralian villa, both 
open and tented, dotted the green, the diaphanous 
material of roof and wall billowing on a breeze 
on the perfect side of cool. Rich colors, damask 
and lavender in particular though he could not 
count the variety of azure and jade he also 
glimpsed, adorned everything in sight like 
dropped silks. Above him the sky appeared draped 
in a twilight glow from some unseen source as if 
he were actually in a vast, warm room. There were 
no stars in the sky, no sun nor moon to offer him 
any sense of time. He could imagine that the glow 
were offered by countless candles and lanterns; 
light enough to see easily but just dim enough to invite intimacy.

And judging by the giggles and growls, gasping 
and moaning, grunts and cries of pleasure, that 
invitation was not ignored. Charles was a man 
grown, even if he were now a rat, and he 
understood those sounds well. In pavilions 
lacking walls he could see shadowy forms in 
earnest motion but chanced not to look more 
closely or intrude upon the sources of those 
pleasured sounds coming at him from every direction save down.

Incense tickled at his nose with whiff of opiates 
and the effervescence of hashish. He swallowed 
heavily, senses dulled in that haze of perfume 
that shamed the most redolent boudoir. That 
particular essence he had long savored that 
lingered in the air of his bedchambers after a 
passionate night with his wife now teased at his whiskers.

But more compelling was the scent of food. 
Glorious, luscious, delectable aromas of fresh 
fruit, cured meats, delicious cheeses sharp, 
mellow, or musky all made his mouth water. His 
tongue slipped free at the tang of exotic spices 
in never-ending combinations that called to him 
more firmly than tug of chain. He felt lifted 
from the earth by the promise of cumin and 
rosemary, anise and nutmeg, cinnamon and thyme, 
paprika and sesame, and many others he could not 
name. The biting promise of wine in unending 
profusion reminded him just how long it had been 
since he had even sipped a thimble-full of water.

There were countless other scents as well, all 
natural, some tantalizing, some heavily pungent 
but all bespeaking of a single overwhelming 
desire beyond hunger. One struck Charles as 
particularly overwhelming, a scent he never would 
have paid heed to before he became a rat for it 
was unique to being what he now was.

A very feminine scent that lanced through his 
senses as keenly as the sharpest sword and lit a 
fire within his loins that left him reeling.

Lifting his head slightly Charles cast his nose 
toward that musk, his whiskers trembling, but at 
the same time he sought to withdraw from it; from 
the complete relinquishment of control its 
appeasement would demand. Where was Qan-af-årael, 
he wondered, sending his thoughts in search of 
him beyond his nose though his body turned and 
his upraised snout sought the source of those 
mingles aromas of food and flesh. The lordly Åelf 
had contended against the very Lord of Rage in 
the dark god's own house. Did his contest 
continue, a stalemate of violence, as his 
protector ever sought to enter the bridge? Had 
Revonos defeated him and fitted him with a collar 
of his own, leaving Charles to face what he might encounter alone?

Charles shuddered at the thought of being left 
without his guide and protector, a soul so 
ancient and so unimaginably powerful that he 
could stand against the gods in their own 
thronerooms and escape undefeated. Padding the 
down the pathway of unidentifiable yellow 
material the rat crept past the nearest of the 
pavilions, this with its silken walls drawn down. 
That thin barrier showed shadows writhing within, 
but did nothing to mask the sounds that they 
made. Backing his ears Charles sidled past, 
leaving the garden, going from where he had no 
idea where he was to another place that he know 
how where it was; but the bridge would be there.

He had to trust in the Åelf. Qan-af-årael would 
appear, as unblemished as Charles, after he 
vanquished Rage, to lead his little rat beyond this place of suffering and woe.

Creeping along the walls, ducking quickly past 
doors, Charles entered a wide corridor paved in 
that yellow material. Under his paws it felt like 
sand that had been frozen in place; rough enough 
that his paws did not slip but smooth enough to 
be comfortable underfoot. It was neither hot nor 
cold nor, particularly, hard. It did not deform 
with each step but there was a subtle yield to it 
as if he were walking on tamped earth.

In short, it was a perfect surface upon which to 
walk unfatigued if that were his desire.

Charles had no such desire; he only wished to 
achieve the next bridge or to find where 
Qan-af-årael had come to rest after escaping from Revonos' realm.

When a hand seized his arm Charles let out an 
indecorous chuff of surprise and tried to pull 
away but the grip was like iron. He leaned 
against the grasp, which turned out to be nothing 
more than a purely ordinary hand unblemished by 
the callouses of labor or color of work 
out-of-doors. An aristocrat's hand, or noble's, 
though the owner of that hand was dressed in the 
rags of the meanest peasant. At one time they had 
been the cloths of a courtesan but time and 
depredations had reduced them to tatters barely 
sufficient to clothe the woman's flesh. Despite 
the fact that he planted his paws Charles felt 
himself dragged into the room from which the 
woman's hands had groped for, and found, a hapless passing victim.

Within were a score or two of similarly dressed 
fallen nobles both men and women, their formal 
clothing stained and ragged with unknowable age, 
milling about a table from which the 
mouthwatering scents of a wondrous feast arose. 
Charles felt his paws forfeit their firm grasp of 
the yellow pathway and his weight drifting toward 
that table under the desperate pull of the 
woman's hand. The table was as long as the Great 
Hall of Metamor ad weighted to groaning under the 
mass of delicacies being brought out by an 
endless line of servitors. Here and there forms 
cavorted upon the table, ignoring the food and 
the results their activities had upon the dishes 
nearest, and Charles cast his gaze away from them 
and deafened his ears to their urgent sounds.

He then understood the shabbily clothed woman's 
plea when he saw another of the beggared nobles 
snatch up an apple backed in cinnamon. Even as 
the man brought it toward his face the apple 
putrefied and crumbled in a sodden mass of 
corruption. Despite that the man shoved the 
remains at his mouth only to have them arrive as 
dust. Nothing was left even on his fingers to 
lick; the apple had been utterly consumed by 
decay. Tentatively, moved by pity, Charles picked 
up a meat pastry and offered it to the woman. 
With a look of wondrous thanks the woman released 
his arm and snatched the pastry with both hands sparing him not another look.

The moment she raised it from his palm the pastry 
sloughed into mold and the meat crumbled to dust 
leaving her noble hands unblemished by so much as a crumb.

While she moaned at the failure of her desperate 
thoughts Charles made his escape, darting back 
out into the passage of the yellow path and 
almost collided with the most ideal image of 
beauty he had ever crossed in all the days of his 
mortal life – human or rodent. Standing just 
beyond the doorway was a rat – a female rat – of 
radiant white garbed in the finest of royal 
gowns. Her eyes were an arresting shade of azure 
blue that did not gaze upon him beatifically; 
they were level, appraising, and hungry in a most coquettish manner.

To her beauty – perfectly smooth pink nose, 
exquisitely shaped incisors, whiskers of exact 
measure and breadth, ears delicate and round, and 
breasts ample but not overflowing – the Lady 
Kimberly was the meanest of peasants, a visage so 
revolting to look upon her after this comely 
beauty would be enough to make him nauseous.

In such proximity her bouquet – a plethora of 
mixed aromas – struck him like a hammerblow. 
Under the scents of perfume perfect for her 
natural musk, of the finest silks and oils, was 
another scent altogether. The scent of her nature 
refined, at the peak of ripeness, lit a fire 
within the rat that burned his thought to a whirling fog.

The candle, the flame; shield with sword 
inscribed; center and cleanse! The simple 
meditations of Charles' youth was all he could 
find to cling to lest he fling himself into that 
ravishing beauty and be lost. He reeled back, 
focusing on the inner calm, the center that would 
allow him to purge the fire that threatened his 
sanity and the very love he had for his own wife. 
Throwing a hand up as if suddenly facing a 
blinding light Charles turned and fled down the passageway.

The image of beauty and lustful desire did not 
pursue, merely looking after his retreating form 
with a slight smile pulling at the corners of her 
perfect muzzle, perfect tail and immaculate whiskers twitching. A challenge!

Accepted.

Walking swiftly, wondering if his master and 
protector Qan-af-årael had finally fallen, was 
still fighting, or had escaped, Charles darted 
quick glances in doors as he passed. Each seemed 
more alluring than the last, but at the same time 
more revolting to his morals. Taking a corner 
when the path turned, he found a pair standing – 
or, rather, leaning – in the corner of two walls. 
A woman, perfectly human in form and beauty, was 
pinned against the corner with her legs wrapped 
about the swarthy muscular hips of a man whose 
clothes had been shed only enough to accomplish the task.

Something told Charles that the man was more than 
he appeared; some itch deep in his gut told him 
that he looked upon an entity as sinister as 
Tallakath's insectile nurses. The demon had its 
back to him, his head bent to the woman's 
shoulder. Quickly sidling around them Charles saw 
in the woman's face not rapture or even pleasure at all.

What he saw was a deep, unappeasable frustration 
as desperate as the lady at the table. While the 
two couple with boundless energy in the public 
venue of the yellow floored passageway Charles 
knew that she had not – and never would – achieve 
what she desired. She was as much a tortured soul 
as those clambering madly after foods that became 
dust in their hands. The woman's fingers clawed 
at the demon's back in the throes of rapturous 
pleasure that her body felt but her soul could 
not; an appetite that could never be slaked no 
matter how she yearned for that release – just 
once – that would allow her damned soul to slip free its bonds of lust.

Backing down the corridor until he felt safe that 
the demon would not turn, with the woman's hungry 
eyes boring into him as if wondering that he 
might offer her what the demon could not, Charles 
felt his upper lip curl from his teeth. Clearly, 
the hellish being was achieving precisely what 
his victim wanted, while she was denied.


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

Charles Matthias
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