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

[C. Matthias]

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

Pars IV: Infernus

(x)

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR


The champion is here, Núrodur.

He saw nothing, but as the rat turned his head to 
one side he caught sight of the first bit of 
light that did not seem obscured in the realm. A 
column of glittering radiance that seemed no 
color and every color at once approached from 
their left. It was tall and narrow and moved 
without care for the souls of mortals strewn in 
its path. The rat pulled the Sondeshike closer as 
if guarding it with his blackened flesh.

The figure stopped a dozen paces from them and 
Charles could see that the light shimmered from a 
hooded cloak he wore. The rat's eyes could not 
linger on any one spot of the cloak for more than 
a moment; there was no pain in trying, it merely 
shimmered with such irregularity that his eyes 
naturally skimmed around its surface in vain hope 
for an anchor. The features beneath the cloak 
were darkened but visible in the shadowed light 
of his garment. Angular cheeks, pointed ears, 
pale skin, and almond eyes tilted upward at the 
outside illumined the face of an elf, cousin race to his master.

The champion's hands gripped a diamond-studded 
pommel. The sword was perfect in every way. 
Charles felt a menace in its existence more 
palpable than the champion himself. He hissed, 
crouched and swept out his tail behind him. Only 
his master's stilling hand and assuring thoughts silenced his tongue.

“You are the Champion of Ba'al,” the Åelf said 
with disinterest as if the figure were no more 
notable than stars on a moonless night. “What errand brings you?”

“The rat beast,” the champion replied with an 
elegant voice, haughty and cultured. “Lord Ba'al 
has granted him an audience and bids him come. I 
suppose you are also invited.” And with that the 
champion turned around and started back the way 
he came. Charles did not move until he felt the 
Åelf's hand gently press on his still-furred back.

They will not harm you, Núrodur. Come.

Charles kept as close to his master as he could 
without tripping over his feet. He eyed the 
champion warily, his eyes ever drawn to the sword 
whose immaculate silver tip seemed, if it were 
impossible, incomplete. The rat felt certain that 
the sword wanted to be dripping blood. There was 
a palpable sense of menace within its luminous perfection.

The champion kept a quick pace that the rat had 
difficulty matching. The elf's long legs allowed 
him to easily step over the prone souls that were 
strewn about the endless wasteland. His master 
also showed no difficulty in navigating the 
treacherous maze of silhouettes. But Charles, 
with his short crook-shanked legs, was forced to 
stretch to step over the damned.

Each soul appeared no clearer to him even in the 
glimmering radiance of the champion's cloak and 
the quicksilver glamor of the diamond-encrusted 
sword. The rat could only discern the outlines of 
arms, legs, heads, and even tails or wings for 
Keeper souls or the souls of other beastly races. 
He would not allow himself to look at their 
faces, but noted only what he needed in order to 
step past them. Not that he had the time to study 
their faces or any part of them with the pace the daedra elf set.

Charles avoided more souls than he could count as 
they followed the path set by the champion, but 
the haste was too much for his short legs. One 
particular soul had his elbow thrust upward, and 
Charles caught it with the bottom of his paw. 
Into his mind, through the barriers placed by his 
master, shared that soul's vision. He saw Gibson 
counting coins in his webbed hands as his googly 
eyes surveyed a row of Glen children shackled 
hand and foot and threaded to a long chain. 
Swarthy men dragged the children up a plank onto a corsair slick with muck.

The rat drove his Sondeshike downward into the 
soul, crushing bones and sinew. He kicked and 
clawed with his paws, tearing and gouging the 
flesh, as a shriek erupted from within him. For a 
moment he felt his black flesh blaze with the 
evisceration. More splatters of tar sizzled 
through the remnants of his attire to join the rest already coating his flesh.

“Do not destroy the crops,” the champion said 
with the clipped tone of a command. Charles 
looked up from his effort and briefly met the 
elf's gaze. His master's hand rested on his 
shoulder and the rat straightened. “Oh, I see.” 
The elf's thin lips stretched ever so slightly 
though not into a smile. He extended the sword 
toward the rat, but more to show him the flat of 
the blade than to brandish it. “You no longer share the sins of the damned.”

Even through the all-encompassing barrier within 
him where he felt his master's presence, Charles 
could sense a change. The pinpricks of vision 
that had found a way through were no more. What 
the champion had said had come true. Startled, 
the rat leaned into the Åelf and sucked in his 
breath. Before he could form a thought, the elf 
champion lowered the blade and turned around, 
casting only a single command over his shoulder. 
“Do not keep Lord Ba'al waiting, rat beast.”

They resumed their walk in the silence of the 
vast emptiness. Charles clutched the Sondeshike 
close to his chest, trying to corral his 
thoughts. He stepped over another five souls 
before he could finally express himself to his master's presence.

What are we going to do?

We will follow the champion to his lord and master, Núrodur.

Is that wise? What will he do to us?

He will tempt you, Núrodur. Even I cannot see the 
manner in which his temptation shall come. But I 
do not believe that he will threaten you. 
Tallakath, Revonos, and Agemnos all threatened 
you but it availed them nothing. The temptation 
of desire and greed has been laid before you but 
you turned aside from it already. You conquered 
Klepnos's madness. He will know all that has 
transpired in its fullness. What he lays before 
you will leave all before but pale imitations.

I'm not sure, master.

Trust in my strength, Núrodur. He cannot touch 
that. Remember your oath of fidelity to me. I will see you through.

Charles allowed that comforting thought to fill 
him as he kept walking. Whether they walked hours 
or days he could not tell. Nor could he recall 
how many more souls he stepped across, kicked 
with his claws, or otherwise scrambled over to 
follow after the champion. But eventually he 
sensed a change in the world around him. The air 
which he did not feel in his breath felt cold 
against his still-furred back. A power dwelt 
before them, immeasurable and ancient, touching 
everything living or dead in the realm.

The ground dipped into a hollow and the gloom, if 
possible, deepened. The only light that still 
shone was the glimmer of the champion's cloak, 
and the corona limning his master. None of these 
were sufficient for Charles to even see his own 
blackened skin anymore. He feared tripping over 
the souls, but the ground was bereft of any 
damned, and apart from the uncertain slope Charles had no difficulty walking

Beyond the champion he could sense the power 
coalesce. A towering form stretched above them, 
darker than pitch even in the moonless gloom, it 
nevertheless had a shape he could discern. As 
they neared, its height dwindled until it stood 
no taller than his master or the champion. The 
daedra elf fell to one knee before the figure, 
and at last the rat could see its eyes. They 
glowed a blue-white light as pure and as vibrant 
as an alchemist's flame. Those eyes captured him 
in their regard and Charles felt as if he were no 
larger than a normal rat. He put his left hand on 
his master's middle to steady himself, while the 
right lowered the Sondeshike. It would do no good here.

The figure shifted, and what seemed an arm 
stretched forth. The voice that came from the 
face which seemed only to have eyes was suffused 
with a power that trembled in his bones, but was 
nevertheless soft and genial. He could do nothing 
but listen to that voice. “Welcome to my realm, 
Sir Charles Matthias. You have undertaken a very 
long journey to reach me here. You have faced 
many dangers, many threats, and still here you 
are, more or less as you once were. I am Ba'al, 
Lord of the Daedra. I am pleased to finally make your acquaintance.”

Charles, in his anxiety, tried to press his 
tongue against the back of his teeth, but the 
slickness of the tar coating each made his tongue 
slip from his jaws instead. He gasped, drew it 
back, and stammered. “I have no business here. I seek to pass Beyond.”

“That is possible for you,” Ba'al admitted; he 
seemed to shrug but Charles couldn't be sure. 
“The way is here. Allow me to be a gracious host 
and show you where the door is.”

To the rat's surprise everything around them in 
the hollow grew a shade brighter. The light 
seemed to come from nowhere, and at the lip of 
the hollow it simply stopped. The depression 
reminded the rat of a dried-up lake bed, with 
hard uninteresting dirt beneath their feet and 
nothing else. They, along with Ba'al and his 
champion, stood on one slope of the hollow. At 
the center, behind the figure still dark with 
only the brilliant blaze of his azure eyes to 
give any light, was a deeper depression whose 
bottom he could not see. His gaze elided from its 
surface in much the same way he could not see 
beyond the sides of each bridge. Was it too an 
edge of reality through which they must break? Could it even be done?

It can and it will.

Charles stretched out an arm, and then grimaced 
as he stared at the blackness of his own flesh. 
The tar was wholly indistinguishable from the 
outline of his body, so that he did not appear to 
possess any depth; it seemed more akin to the 
shadow of his arm than to his actual arm. He 
withdrew the limb and pressed it against his 
chest. He was very grateful in that moment that 
Ba'al had not provided him a mirror.

“Now that you can see it, Sir Matthias, I am 
going to tell you why you do not wish to take 
this door.” Ba'al stepped forward, and in an 
amorphous arm grasped the sword, claiming it from 
the champion's outstretched arms. The daedra lord 
seemed to glance at the weapon for a moment, as 
if intrigued by the craftsmanship of a device he 
had not been familiar with, before he set the 
point at his feet. It did not rest on the ground, 
but fixed firmly in place an inch above as if 
wedged in solid rock. “I am going to tell you why 
you what you truly wish is to become my disciple.”

Even through his anxiety the rat snorted and 
shook his head. His left hand tightened its grip 
on the Åelf's robes. “Your disciple? Never!”

Ba'al tilted his head to one side in the manner 
of an affable elder amused at the antics of the 
young. “Sir Matthias, you malign me, but I do not 
take offense. It is understandable that you would 
refuse. But you have mistaken my offer. I do not 
wish you to be as my champion here. I see the 
thirst for justice in you. I see the light that 
even soul tar cannot wholly hide. You are, 
despite much that you have done of late, a good 
man. I admire you for that, and would not change it.”

Suddenly confused, Charles could only blink and 
shrink further against his master. Ba'al's face 
and eyes seemed to smile in a familiar way 
despite lacking any feature save that unwavering 
gaze. “Yes, I ask you to be my disciple, but that 
does not mean I wish you to be evil. I have my 
champion for such. I seek you rather as a knight, 
one to do good to balance the evil. We daedra are 
the natural balance to the aedra. Good and evil, 
not in conflict with each other, but in balance. 
Harmony. Light and dark, day and night, hot and 
cold, dry and wet, Winter and Summer, Spring and 
Autumn, predator and prey, and many, many 
others.” Briefly that gaze lifted away from 
Charles. “Creation and entropy,” he intoned, 
flatly, before his gaze came back to the rat 
before him. “You know them all, Sir Matthias. You 
know them all. Opposites which require each other.”

Ba'al spread his free arm wide and his eyes 
seemed to sweep across all of reality even though 
the wan light only brought the narrow hallow into 
relief. “If you have no night, then all your 
crops will wither and die from the unending heat. 
And then all the animals and all the races of the 
world will die with them. If you have no day, 
then none of your crops will grow and everything 
will die again. If you have neither heat nor 
cold, neither the dry nor the wet, you suffer a 
similar fate. Balance must be maintained or all 
of life is threatened. So too must it be with 
good and evil. You know this. The Sondeckis and the Kankoran exemplify it.”

Charles shook his head at that. “No, we'd be better off without them!”

“Come, Sir Matthias, Sondeckis of the Black. You 
know the histories of your clan better than most. 
You know the times when your efforts to ensure 
justice have served to destroy the very people 
you are meant to guard. But think on it. Can you 
truly say that there is a difference between this 
and any other necessary opposite? You can serve 
to help restore the balance amongst the Pantheon 
by becoming my disciple. And with balance amongst 
the Pantheon, there will be balance amongst all 
your kind. When was the last time your world knew 
harmony and peace? Do your histories ever record such a time? No, they do not.”

Charles tried to raise his right hand to make the 
sign of the Yew, but he still held the Sondeshike 
there. Ba'al still noticed his effort and offered 
a sad shake of his head. “Sir Matthias, why do 
you waste your time on a god who does not answer 
you?” The blue eyes flared and his voice took on 
an enthusiasm the rat recalled hearing in the 
voice of his fellow writers when the muse struck. 
“Let me present you with a proposition. I propose 
that there are no true Patildor in the world. 
Every Patildor at his heart still worships the 
Pantheon even if they will not admit it. Consider 
your home, Metamor Keep. How often do the 
Patildor there, when their prayers go unanswered, 
seek some other remedy, be it magic or the 
intervention of the Pantheon? You yourself have 
born the marks of both Velena and Akkala. You too 
are already a Lothanasi. You seek the aid of 
others when you do not believe your Eli will help 
you.” He thrust out an arm once more to encompass 
the blackness about them. “Cast your gaze about! 
Where exactly are you, Sir? Through whence have 
you passed to stand before me? Not in the Heavens 
of the Patildor, and most certainly not their 
Hell. Can you dispute this, Sir Matthias?”

Try as he might, Charles could not force himself 
to reject it. He tried to look away but the lord 
of daedra was mesmerizing. Every mote of darkness 
seemed to swirl about every other mote in his 
shape so that his eyes were ever lost, swirled 
this way and that, until finally they returned to 
those fiery blue-white coals. Vivid and 
resplendent, they pierced through to his soul. 
Had he any secrets from this one?

“I... It was the only choice! I would have been stone forever!”

Master, please help me!

Remember your oath.

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

Charles Matthias
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