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

[C. Matthias]

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

Pars IV: Infernus

(u)

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR


As they stepped past the next pair of reeking 
piles of stone and metal, Charles caught sight of 
something new in the distance. Beyond the stretch 
of plating covering the ground he saw a patch of 
rough earth that glimmered with faceted crystals 
in a profusion of colors. Even in the gloom they 
sparkled with an inborn radiance that whispered 
of a magnificent castle for the Narrows and the 
softest garments, the most succulent delicacies, 
the finest entertainment, and diversions of every 
sort to suit any whim. Charles closed his eyes 
and shook his head back and forth, whiskers 
drooped, until the images were gone.

When he looked up again he saw more than just the 
gems valuable beyond all reckoning. There were 
people stationed throughout the field of jagged 
crystal. They, like Agemnos, were attired in 
expensive silks and furs, each showing the wealth 
they'd once possessed. But now their garments 
were threadbare and worn from decades and 
centuries spent swinging picks to break apart the 
crystals. Other creatures, vile looking things 
that in the distortion of light Charles could not 
make out well, struck them with whips even when 
they were freeing the gems and working themselves into a lather.

Despite how close they appeared at first, Charles 
realized as he turned his large, scalloped ears 
to listen, that they made no noise at all. He 
twisted his from side to side and saw the image 
distort as if he were staring at them through an 
immense lens. They and the field of crystal were 
out there, but both impossibly beyond his reach 
to aid. Somehow, Charles knew the gems were not 
beyond the grasp of avarice, but suffused himself 
in his master's confident and focused presence to silence such temptations.

They continued on their way and with reluctance 
Charles turned his focus back to the road. For 
once the rat wished he were something else so 
that his eyes could not see to either side. The 
gems sparkled and the greedy slaved for each and 
every one that they could never keep. His heart 
beat wearily and for a moment he wasn't sure 
which he actually wanted to gather. He grabbed 
Qan-af-årael's robe in his left hand, tightening 
so that his claws dug into the soft, white fabric 
as thin as gossamer but as unyielding as steel, 
and shut his eyes tight. He would not be tempted by riches. He would not!

He felt his master's hand cup around his back and 
gently urge him forward. The rat kept pace, 
trusting that the road would remain straight and 
that he would not stumble so long as he held the 
robe. His tail lashed behind him with all of his 
frustration as he fought and struggled against 
the allure of wealth. He knew he needed money if 
he were to support his family. The Long Scouts 
paid well enough, but had it really been enough? 
He now had land to tend. In time, with care and 
good seasons much wealth could be produced from 
that land, but what of his family in the interim? 
And how was he to afford the construction of a 
keep to watch over that land? How could he clear 
the woods enough to even build a road to carry 
that potential produce to markets where it might 
fetch a good price? He needed wealth for this.

No! He needed nothing from this place!

Just a handful from this place and he would have 
enough and vast sums to aid the poor, hungry, and 
homeless of Metamor, just as he had once aided his friend James.

Charles ground his incisors together. No! He 
would not take even the tiniest fleck of gold from this hell!

Without money his wife and children would starve. 
It was wrong to make them suffer want.

His tongue shaped words and repeated them against 
the tendrils of greed. Seek ye first the kingdom 
of Eli, and all these things shall be added unto you.

Into that inner turmoil snapped the crack of a 
whip. The rat stood upright, swinging the 
Sondeshike to his right through empty air, eyes 
blinking open in alarm. On either side of the 
road, only a handful of paces away, were fields 
of ghastly rock from which the gems protruded. 
Not a single one in all their facets, colors, and 
uncut glimmering was smaller than the rat's head. 
Between them and the rat were more richly-dressed 
souls, their faces a mix of callow struggle and 
toadying cooperation. They stared at the gems 
they fought to free from their rocky prisons with 
almost raw need. Bloody welts stained their garments all across their backs.

One of the guards seemed within reach of his 
Sondeshike. It was a thing of shadows that did 
not seem to possess substance. It was formed by 
black veils that shifted this way and that as if 
covering a body his eyes could not perceive. A 
whip, long, red from blood, but filled with 
golden thread, lifted high over the immaterial 
guard's substance, and then lashed outward to 
score a young man's back. His mouth opened and 
face contorted in a scream. But even though the 
snapping leather was clear, no sound came from the man.

Charles tightened his grip on the Åelf and forged 
ahead, trembling as the figures seemed to follow 
him for several steps before the strange 
lens-like distortion made them appear much 
further away. The rat swallowed and tried to 
close his eyes again. The presence at his side 
touched his mind gently and for the first time he 
felt as if he could see his friend and now liege 
in the ephemeral mists drifting over the walls of 
his consciousness. His white garments, 
unblemished and simple in their elegance, were a 
stark contrast to the gaudy wealth that dripped 
from every mote of fabric in all the beings he 
saw here. But their wealth was a ruin, and even 
Agemnos' had been chicanery, a convenient 
illusion that suited him but would not last 
beyond the time for which it served.

The rat knew, as he saw within his mind his 
friend, protector and lord take shape that he had made the right decision.

Their steps continued unerring for what felt 
several minutes though it could have been hours 
before he felt Qan-af-årael pause. Charles 
stopped and blinked open his eyes. Even as dim as 
the twilight had become in the lee of the massive 
building stretching high above, he still had to 
squint after holding them shut for so long. The 
road ended at the open doors of one of the 
strange buildings gushing smoke. The iron doors 
stood twice the Åelf's height and were wide 
enough for a team of four horses to prance 
side-by-side as they entered. There was no 
decoration to the door or the walls of the 
building, no heraldry to mark its owner, and no 
windows to permit light; nothing brought any 
color to the sullen metal and barren stone before them.

Beyond the doors they could hear the grinding of 
gears and the slow, squeal of iron scraping 
against steel. Charles flicked his ears back and 
lifted his right arm to shield his snout and 
chest. The remnants of his cloak fluttered 
against his legs and tail though he felt no wind. 
The rat in him felt as though he cowered before 
the maw of a giant snake. What little light 
penetrated the building revealed only that the 
passage beyond the door was fashioned from the 
same perfectly smooth stones as the road. There 
were no walls to support the massive edifice; 
only the yawning void of shadow awaited them.

Qan-af-årael laid a slender hand upon his back 
and nodded. Charles glanced up at him and, 
whiskers drooping, nodded. His master raised his 
left hand and from the tips of his fingers sprang 
a quintet of witchlights which raced over their 
heads to dance in a tight circle, casting a pale, 
silver glow around them. Charles felt cheered by 
such a little thing and together they stepped 
through the massive portal into the building.

He half-feared the doors would swing shut behind 
them, but they remained fixed in place as if they 
were contemptuous of all trespassers. The 
exterior walls did not appear to be supported 
beyond their own weight and the ceiling was lost 
beyond the glow of the witchlights. But around 
them Charles saw many puzzling things. Strange 
constructions from iron forged into long beams 
and vast pits surrounded them on all sides and in 
rows as far as the light penetrated. Bridges thin 
as a blade and yet perfectly stiff stretched 
overhead from one vat to another and from one 
contraption to the next. Cylindrical chambers 
sealed with the clearest glass Charles had ever 
seen abounded on every side, and in each of them 
he saw one of the victims of greed trapped, all 
still donned in their rotting finery. Their faces 
were contorted with anguished screams that did 
not penetrate the glass. At the bottom of each 
chamber thin tubes descended toward larger vats 
beneath in which pistons churned a black tar-like 
substance as if it were butter.

The rat swallowed heavily as he saw the bodies 
crushed, squeezed, sliced, and pulverized from 
every side in those vats and narrow cylinders, 
the essence of their spiritual flesh oozing from 
them as a thin gruel into which they sank and 
suffered before it was sucked down the narrow 
tubes to join the tar beneath. Not a single one 
of the dark Lord of Avarice's minions was there 
to mete out punishment. Every ounce and every 
mote of soul-crushing anguish was administered by 
soulless machines. These souls who had 
mercilessly crushed others in their ascent to 
mortal power and wealth were now in turn reduced 
to mash by something which was incapable of pity.

Although the road was gone, a path between the 
machines continued before them and down this Åelf 
and rat walked. Charles glanced up at 
Qan-af-årael every dozen paces, but could not 
keep his eyes from wandering across the vast 
array of chambers into which souls were ground in 
misery. Men and women of every race and every age 
filled the chambers and of that alone there 
seemed no rhyme or reason. Charles wondered if 
any of the youths he saw were Keepers but was 
grateful he did not recognize any.

And then his eyes alighted upon one of the larger 
vats into which dozens churned and he swallowed 
heavily, heart tightening in his chest. The first 
one he saw was a hound of some kind, with short 
fur and angular features that struck him as 
somewhat familiar, though no name would come. But 
after him came a dozen other Keepers, clad in 
fur, scales, and feather, their bodies shriveled 
and bent in ways no mortal could endure, twisted 
and rolled like a lump of dough until they too 
began to leak the black tar. It surged and pulsed 
at the bottom of the vat, sucking and sloshing 
around paws and tails, suffocating and squelching 
as they struggled against it and to find any 
purchase from which to escape their unending torment.

His eyes lingered until one of the avian Keepers 
was thrust against the glass chamber, its 
black-feathered wings, tipped white beneath, 
spread outward, while its bald, blotchy head was 
battered back and forth. For a single moment one 
dark eye flicked toward them before the Keeper 
was yanked away by the machine. Charles choked back a cry and hurried on.

Machine after machine lined the passage and in 
each vessel was a mortal soul in the process of 
reduction to tar. Agonies and violence abounded 
on every side. Charles crouched low, huddled next 
to the noble Åelf who noted all with a 
disapproving moue in his otherwise inscrutable 
expression. The path remained straight and turned 
neither to the right nor the left. And though the 
building had not appeared so large from the 
outside, the ceiling was lost in the gloom above, 
and the walls were only a faint memory. All that 
there was to see and know was the churning, 
crunching, gurgling sound of the machines.

So it was that Charles hissed in surprise when 
the path came to an abrupt end before a wide pit 
that dropped into a funnel at whose base twisted 
a series of gears with serrated edges. Only a 
pinprick of light was visible between them, and 
it cast a faint shimmering glow upon the gears. 
The metal screeched against metal, and the rat 
felt an involuntary shudder cascade through his 
fur. For several seconds he stood at the lip of 
the pit staring down in stupefied horror.

A satirical and vile little voice piped from 
above them. It sounded male, but so strained as 
if he were speaking while tearing flesh apart 
with his fangs. “So you are here, the living mortal looking for a way out!”

Their eyes lifted and reclining on a metal pipe 
through which sloshed rivulets of black tar as 
the souls above were pulverized was a 
blue-skinned imp. His ears were long and pointed, 
short horns dotted his hairless head and 
protruded from his elbows and knees, and a 
curling tail that ended in a series of quill-like 
spikes flicked back and forth. Cruel nails 
scraped the metal pipe, sending a shiver of pain 
through the rat's ears. Rubies and sapphires 
glimmered in rings set on his fingers, and one 
even sparkled where it had been drilled into the 
side of one of his fangs. Apart from those he 
bore no other garments. Vicious red eye regarded them with hunger.

Qan-af-årael stretched out his left hand and from 
it sprang the tree blade, its deep, violet sheen 
making the tar glisten with an eerie light. The 
imp leaned back from the blade's touch but did 
not lose his leering smile. “Your master has a message for us. Speak it.”

The imp wrinkled its nostrils and spat on the 
blade. A wisp of smoke was all that gave evidence 
to his spittle as it disintegrated. The imp 
slipped back through the pipes and then spread 
hidden wings as it descended to the path behind 
them. The Åelf tracked him with the blade. 
Charles took a step to the side to put distance 
between himself and the pit. The imp cackled and 
stretched its thin lips across its fangs. “The 
bridge lies beneath the funnel. To get to the 
bridge you must first remove the gears. The gears 
are sealed and can only be removed by forcing a mortal soul through them.”

Charles flicked back his ears. “And what happens 
to the soul? Will it be destroyed?”

The imp dropped his lower jaw in a hungry laugh. 
“Destroyed? Fool mortal. My master would never 
destroy a soul when it can harvested. The soul 
will be processed, of course. The tar will fetch 
him much in the hells. You will help my master 
with his harvest on your way out. Or you will be part of his harvest.”

The tree blade swelled in size, the tip jabbing 
within inches of the imp's face. It scowled at 
the blade but did not flinch. Qan-af-årael's 
voice was powerful and full of ice. “Your master 
already processes more souls than you could 
count. These machines deliberately prolong the 
suffering of their victims. You know it is done 
so to obtain the purest potency of each soul. 
Your master assured us that passage through the 
bridge would doom my Núrodur to this place. What lie have you spun?”

The blue-skinned tilted back his head and 
laughed. His eyes seemed to burn like iron in the 
forge. “These souls are processed by machines. If 
your rat wants out of this trap, he must push the 
soul in himself. He will process the soul. He 
will take the place of the machines. His hand 
will be stained in tar, his work in this place 
begun! No matter where he goes once he leaves, 
that mark is indelible. He will return and never leave!”

Charles unfurled his Sondeshike and shook his 
head. “Never! You will never claim my soul!”

“Claim it?” The imp stood taller and spread his 
bat-like wings. “You will give it to my master!”

Qan-af-årael motioned for Charles to remain where 
he was. With his other arm he made another feint 
with the blade. “Is there any more your master bid you tell us?”

The imp took a step back, stretched its jaws 
wide, bent over at the middle, and vomited up 
something black and long. It clattered as iron 
against iron upon the path but did not move 
further. The creature stroked it with one hand, 
claws unable to mar it. “My master bid me give 
you this. With this you can draw a single soul of 
out the machines. It will only work once. 
Whichever soul you free from the machine you must 
push into the pit or you will be trapped here. 
And that is all my master bid me to say to you!” 
His eyes glimmered, ravenous as he turned on 
Charles. “I will enjoy welcoming you back, rat!”

“You won't.” Qan-af-årael flicked his wrist and 
the tree blade swelled another ten feet in 
length, its multiple spires reducing the imp to 
sizzling strips of flesh before it could even 
flinch. Charles twitched his whiskers and then 
lowered his head in admiration and gratitude. The 
Åelf smiled to him and rested his free hand upon 
the rat's head for a moment, before returning to 
the pit. “It did not lie about the gears. They 
will only open if a mortal soul is fed through them.”

“Can you destroy them?”

“I can, but the magical weave that Agemnos has 
sealed them with is intricate and so convoluted 
that even Klepnos would approve. I fear any 
tampering with the gears will destroy you if not the bridge itself.”

“I will not murder anyone for this!”

“I told you not to feel pity for the souls in 
this place,” Qan-af-årael reminded him. “Agemnos 
cannot indelibly mark you for this, Núrodur. You 
have already sworn yourself to me.”

Charles nodded and then his eyes fell upon the 
black rod on the path a few feet from the meaty 
remnants of the imp. “What if... what if I didn't 
push the mortal soul? What if they went willingly?”

Qan-af-årael gestured to the device left for them 
and offered a wan smile to the rat. “I see what 
you intend. Try it. But do not blame yourself if it does not work.”

Charles offered his master a grateful smile and 
bob of his snout before bending down to lift the 
metal rod. It was stronger than iron but lacked 
the shine of steel, black as obsidian it was 
still a metal alloy though he could make no guess 
as to its composition. The haft was shaped in a 
square two inches to a side, and it felt heavy in 
his grasp, the edges digging into the tough flesh 
of his palms. Apart from its mysterious 
composition and dark hue there was nothing 
remarkable about it at all, nor was there any 
indication as to how he was to use it. Tightening 
his grip on the rod, Charles let out a sigh and 
started walking back along the path at the side of his Åelf.


A part of him hoped that he would see another 
soul in those perfidious vats whom he would 
recognize, but despite the rush of faces in that 
banquet of souls, not a one of them was familiar. 
Charles looked to each and even lingered for a 
moment before the larger vats so that all of the 
shredded occupants might pass before his eyes. He 
knew not a one of them and so left them to their torment.

His steps and his attention carried him, despite 
himself, to the vat filled to overflowing with 
Keepers. His whiskers drooped as he lifted the 
rod and tapped it against the glass. It made no 
sound but there seemed to be a distant rumbling 
from all around as if an echo. The glass rippled 
like a fish breaking the surface of a calm lake 
as it ate a fly. The rat's whiskers trembled as 
the tip of the rod slipped through the glass; the 
machine shuddered and the turbulent churning stilled.

For a moment the many Keepers within continued to 
flinch from their anguish, but after a few 
seconds of stillness their eyes opened and as one 
they turned toward the rat and his Åelvish 
master. Furious clawing, kicking, scratching, and 
gouging ensued as they struggled one over another 
to reach the tip of the rod that had pierced 
their prison. Charles almost recoiled but for a 
strong, steady hand at his back and a warm assuring presence in his mind.

The struggle lasted only moments before the 
short-furred hound tore out a ferret's nethers to 
gain the prize. His hand, short claws beaten and 
bloodied, wrapped about the end of the rod. The 
air inside the vat seemed to thicken and the 
other Keepers struggled vainly to dislodge the 
red-furred hound from his place. Charles gasped 
as words flowed through the rod, and both 
indignation and anger toward so many that despite 
Qan-af-årael's support the rat still felt his 
knees begin to buckle. The howling fury of a 
blizzard seemed to surge through those thoughts, 
and for a moment the rod they held seemed to be a 
dark blade limned with volcanic light.

I have a destiny! I was to see him die! I was to 
be important! But I have been betrayed and cast 
into this place! Draw me out and give me my revenge!

Charles took a deep breath and shook his head. 
His thoughts return cold and implacable as stone. 
No. Not you. I am here for only one of you.

But you must free me! I have been wronged! The 
fire and ice drove deeper against the rat but he 
felt a well of strength enter him from his 
master. He would be as the stone. The Keepers 
here were not victims of anything but their own 
greed. His voice swelled with power as ancient 
and unconquerable as the mountains.

I am here for only one and it is not you. Back in 
the vat with you, slave of Agemnos! Get back and 
suffer the fate your misdeeds have purchased!

The hound paled, his eyes wide and white, and 
then his battered body flinched and he collapsed 
backward into the midst of Keepers all eager to 
claim freedom for themselves. But the rat's 
thoughts stilled them all; none made any move to 
advance, though the yearning in their eyes and 
claws was unmistakeable. Charles stared past 
them, nostrils flaring with breath, until his 
gaze settled upon the one Keeper who had not rushed forward.

I am here for Baldwin.

The condor shifted, the black feathers of his 
wings ruffling as he stepped forward. Beady, dark 
eyes glowered at him down the fat curve of his 
beak. For several long seconds the Keeper stared 
at the tip of the rod piercing the glass; 
contempt filled its gaze but for what was not 
clear. The other Keepers frothed hungrily, their 
muzzles opening and closing as if they begged the 
rat to free them instead. Charles ignored them and kept his gaze on the condor.

The Keeper's wings hunched a moment and his chest 
sagged as if he were resolving himself to some 
loathsome task. One wing-claw stretched out and 
brushed against the square tip. The voice that 
struck the rat was not the convivial squawk he'd 
known in those first few months of his life as a 
Long Scout. Rather it was one filled with 
acrimony and bitterness, burdened by resentment, 
and laid over with a veneer of disgust.

Have you come to spew your venom at me too? I am 
dead! Betrayed by Nasoj's men as I betrayed the 
Longs! What anguish could you give to me that I 
do not already receive in this place?

Charles tensed under the acid. One hand gripped 
the hem of his tattered cloak and pulled it tight 
across his chest so that the heraldry was plain. 
His thoughts, once stern and angry, were now 
quiet, as of a mountain breeze gently disturbing 
pine branches. I am not here for any of that, 
Baldwin. I... I know that you had voiced 
suspicions about my past allegiances and my 
penchant for secrecy. I had hoped the few times 
we had been out drinking together could have 
helped us know each other better. It was a 
terrible pain to learn that I had not known you 
at all. I did not want to believe it of you but here I find you.

You have found me. What do you want with me? If 
you do not speak plainly I will let go and you 
may as well let this machine reduce us to paste.

I want to help redeem you.

The pause that filled his mind was so potent that 
he feared for a moment even Qan-af-årael had 
recoiled from him. But his master's presence was 
also there; it had never moved. The condor 
shifted behind the glass, turning his beak from 
side to side as he regarded Charles with one 
gleaming, coal-black eye and then the other. The 
wing claw wavered against the end of the rod 
before his thoughts finally returned, incredulous 
and bewildered. Redeem me? I am damned. I 
betrayed the Long Scouts, men and woman who 
called me friend, for a pittance that I will 
never enjoy. I let Metamor's enemies within her gates. You cannot redeem me.

Charles swallowed, but did not allow his thoughts 
to betray either ire or impatience. I too 
betrayed Metamor. I too brought one of her 
enemies within her gates and saw him safely out 
again. And I did it for no reason greater than my pride.

The condor shifted closer, one wing pressed 
against the glass, the other touching the tip of 
the rod but refusing to grasp it. Did you kill a 
fellow Keeper because of your pride?

Wessex. The name came to him suddenly, but in a 
way he knew it was true. His refusal to admit 
what he knew of Zagrosek after Loriod had been 
cast down had led step by step to the boy mage's 
murder. He did not thrust the knife but he'd help 
guide it. He shuddered and shook his head, his 
thoughts as still as the mountain. I helped kill Wessex.

His wing draped across the rod. And they let you live?

I was exiled. But I also repented and dared not 
make the mistake that led to my betrayal again. 
Come with me and I can help you. You don't have 
to spend eternity being destroyed by this machine.

The condor's eyes narrowed. How did you kill him?

The rat could only grimace. With my secrets.

I always knew your secrets ran deeper than Misha would admit.

Charles twisted his end of the rod in his paws, 
his grimace descending into a glower that made 
his whiskers stand out on either side. His eyes 
narrowed for a moment, and then he released the 
breath he held and let the anger melt from his 
face. His thoughts resumed, even quieter than 
before. And I was a fool to keep them. I do not 
keep them any longer now. I want to help you. 
Please, grip the rod and I will free you from the machine.

And if I refuse?

I will not threaten you. If you refuse I will 
choose somebody else to free. I want it to be you.

The condor sneered, squawking inaudibly with his 
beak. The thoughts that returned through the rod 
were angry and full of resentment. Me? So you can 
prove that you redeemed me? Or to assuage your 
conscience by proving that I was a lost soul and 
that there was nothing you could do about it? Or 
is it merely to believe you can be redeemed as well? You do not care about me!

Charles ground his molars together but kept all 
other signs of frustration buried deep within. He 
felt the hand at his back slip up to his 
shoulder. A certainty, a sense of authority, was 
conveyed by that touch. You will come with me. I 
cannot prove to you my intentions here. It is 
only when you see where I take you that you will 
know I speak true. Do you wish to spend ages 
beyond reckoning being mercilessly destroyed by 
this machine or do you wish one last chance to 
make amends and prove that you are worth more than currency for dark monsters?

The condor stared at him for a long moment, dark 
eyes piercing above the edge of his yellow beak. 
Slowly, but inexorably, they slid down across the 
glass until they touched the rod upon which only 
a single feather remained. Those eyed bored into 
the metal rod as if they could pierce its very 
substance to the will of its maker. Still 
hardened and dubious, the condor lifted one of 
its legs and wrapped a talon about the edge of 
the rod. The thoughts that touched him were 
filled with pain. I am worth more. Draw me out.

The other Keepers wailed and beat at some 
imaginary wall even as Charles pulled the rod 
out. The glass shimmered and rippled, though now 
the waves rose and fall as if a vast rock had 
been tossed within. For a moment Charles felt 
sure the machine itself would buckle and break, 
but the metal, no matter how the glass moved, 
remained fix and inviolate. Through the glass the 
condor emerged, the many wounds from which he had 
been leaking unrefined potency all sealed again.

Behind the condor the glass reasserted itself, 
bowing inward once before resuming its normal 
shape. And then all of the furious souls still 
trapped within were battered about once more as 
the machine resumed its pitiless course. The bird 
Keeper glanced back at it and stared for several 
long seconds before spreading his wings and 
shaking them out. His red-skinned bald head 
twisted from side to side as if trying to decide 
what to preen first. But no bird Charles had ever 
seen had looked at their own bodies with so much 
disgust that they couldn't decide.

The rod in the rat's hand and the condor's talon, 
once so strong and heavy, for a moment became as 
light as a wooden twig. The next moment it 
narrowed and withered with little flakes tearing 
away as if eaten by a gale wind. In surprise both 
Charles and the bird Keeper dropped their end. 
The rod did not even bounce, for it had been 
reduced to a mist that scattered in every 
direction. Agemnos' dismembered servant had 
spoken the truth that this was a tool that could only be used once.

----------

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

Charles Matthias
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