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

[C. Matthias]

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

Pars IV: Infernus

(y)

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR

“Expediency, Sir Matthias. Your Eli was not 
responding and so you turned to the Pantheon. You 
can hardly be blamed for that. In fact, I applaud 
you for it. We have always been dutiful to your 
race, solicitous to our disciples and generous 
with our power. I make no distinction between the 
aedra and my own daedra in this. We need each 
other to keep the world in balance, even if the 
aedra do need to be reminded of this. What is 
important is this: you sought the aid of the 
Pantheon and received what you asked for.”

Charles felt his tar-coated body simmer with an 
inner fire. “And they did nothing for my child! They let my Ladero die!”

“Yes,” Ba'al agreed, a note of sadness touching 
his voice. “Yes, they did. I am deeply grieved 
for your sorrow. They do give as they should – 
sometimes – but I fear their power has made them 
more arrogant than they must be. Until you have 
done something for them, they do nothing for you. 
I do not believe my communion with my disciples 
should flow but one way. I am a generous 
suzerainty, Sir Matthias. You have already 
received the benefit of my largesse.”

He backed his ears and scoffed. “How?”

Ba'al's smile seemed a crescent moon. “The Curses 
of Metamor. Nasoj thought I would help him 
conquer the Midlands. He thought to make a third 
of you animals, but I always intended that the 
transformation would only be part-way. They 
provided you with a place to hide, Sir Matthias, 
and have since brought you a wife and a family, 
all of you rats. That was my hand guiding the 
Curse. If not for that, you would have continued 
to flee and hide from your clan and in the end 
you would have been found, brought back, and 
faced their judgment. Would Brothus, the White 
you fled from, have been merciful?” Ba'al shook 
his head, ever so briefly closing his eyes as he 
did – insomuch as they momentarily faded into the 
greater darkness of his visage only to reappear a 
heartbeat later. The gesture, despite his 
appearance, seemed sympathetic, as of a father 
fondly counseling his son. “No he would not. Would he?”

He didn't want to listen, but Charles could not 
help but remember that time. To betray the 
Sondeckis was an act of gross injustice. He had 
fled, unable to murder for his White, Brothus, 
any more. For two years he had fled, running from 
place to place, first around Sonngefilde, and 
then into Galendor. He had even gone into the 
Åelfwood to hide from the Sondecki sent to find 
him, his childhood friend Jerome Krabbe. He had 
lived in near constant fear, sleeping but rarely 
and often in filth, eating only what he could 
scrounge and sometimes beg, and calling himself 
by whatever name could be forgotten. He had been 
a nobody, seeking some place into which he could disappear forever.

And then he learned of the Curse and Metamor 
Keep. In that place he had gone, and into that 
place he had found safety. He had rebuilt his 
life, reclaimed his name, and had hidden his 
powers behind imaginative stories of a kind he 
would never have told amongst the Sondeckis. And 
there he met Kimberly, and because of her and his 
love for her Jerome had chosen to join him in exile even if not at Metamor.

The Curse Ba'al had arranged for Metamor had 
saved him and blessed him. The alternative...

“No,” Charles admitted with a sigh, black claws 
tightening their grip on the Åelf's robe, nearly 
tearing through it. “No, he would not have. The 
Curse of Metamor saved my life and so much more.”

Ba'al nodded, his smile thinning but ever present. “You see it is as I say.”

He did not intend to help you. His aid was given 
to the creator of those curses, who failed in its 
dispensation, not in benign direction of its results

“But,” Charles managed to say, his voice almost a 
squeak, “you did not create the Curses to help 
me. Any help I received was unintentional.”

Ba'al chuckled, a strangely bright sound. “Of 
course I did, Sir Matthias. Even you will intend 
benefits to more than one person by your actions. 
You even intend different benefits to come to 
different people by the same action. Your people 
have a saying, 'Catching two fish with one lure'. 
I have accomplished this for multitudes with one 
deed. Not only have I helped you, but I have 
helped all the Midlands and even the Giantdowns 
by this act. Nasoj's rule is broken. His 
lieutenants are scattered or dead. Metamor has 
now become a beacon of hope to all who suffer 
sickness and disease or who seek a new life. My 
hand has accomplished this, Sir Matthias.”

“But all the death...”

“Balance; death comes from nature, is a part of 
nature, and must come to pass. I wish to bring 
that back, Sir Matthias. You wish this as well 
which is why you will become my disciple.”

“No, I will not!”

“You will be and you are already.” Ba'al's 
faceless visage adopted a mien of understanding 
and patience, while his voice unsettled the rat 
with its certainty. “But I would be remiss if I 
did not provide you with more intimate reasons to be my disciple.”

Now he will tempt you.

“I am Lord of the Daedra. All of my kind you have 
encountered on your journey answer to me. They 
can act only with my permission. I have, it is 
true, given them broad latitude in how they 
pursue their spheres, but I retain the privilege 
of restraint and direction. At my command they 
will act. I can use this authority to help those 
whose lives are important to you. Let me show you 
what I intend to provide my newest disciple.”

Ba'al extended his left arm and from the darkness 
within sprang an illusion that framed the space 
beside them. Charles only watched with his right 
eye that his left could still glimpse his master 
who had not moved a muscle since the hollow's 
illumination. He felt as if he stared through a 
window into an abandoned home as everything was 
dark and cluttered within. He could see trees, 
rocks, and the suggestion of a larger forest, but 
there was only a vague twilight to reveal each. 
The rat only realized that what he saw was the 
dense forests of Lilith's realm when a familiar 
groundhog and a quartet of loosely clad humans 
crept into view. The scene shifted to follow them 
as they tracked in silence, eyes ever wary for attack from any direction.

“Your friend and fellow Long Scout, Craig 
Latoner,” Ba'al announced with a suggestion of 
fondness in his tone. “Before him stretches aeons 
unending of life like a true beast. Hiding 
beneath the earth. Scrounging for everything. His 
only hope is not to end up sacrificed on one of 
Lilith's altars. He lives every moment trying to 
find newly dead souls and rescue them before they 
are captured by Lilith's servants. He will never 
know rest. Struggle unending is all that he has. 
A mere word from me and he will be plucked from 
Lilith's demesnes and brought to the abode of the 
just who find peaceful rest beneath the moonlight sky of Nocturna's abode.

“Do not think my generosity stops there.” The 
image faded and then sprung to vibrant life. 
Charles sighed as he saw the vast enclosed 
gardens of Tallakath's realm. He could see the 
pits into which victims were subjected to all 
manner of disease and suffering. Wessex walked 
between them seeking people to help. “Wessex 
ard'Kapler hoped at his death that he would 
receive rest with his family already dead. 
Instead his soul never knows rest. Rather he 
endures the anguish of bearing witness to 
uncountable suffering, the merest fraction of 
which he might alleviate for a time. But 
Tallakath knows of Wessex and others like him, 
and the time will come when Wessex himself will 
be captured and subjected to the horrors you 
tasted the merest vapors of. For my disciple he 
too shall find rest with the just.”

The window flared baleful red and Charles' grip 
on the Sondeshike tightened. The black-armored 
daedra lord held the massive dire wolf pinned 
with one hand around its throat, swords driven 
through each shoulder and hip into the stone 
table beneath, while the other hand ripped back 
layer after layer of flesh, peeling the beast 
open like a dissection. The wolf screamed and 
writhed, its voice gone hoarse with prolonged 
agony. Blood gurgled in its lungs and dripped 
like rain from its fur onto the thirsty 
bloodstone ground. Arcs of crimson light slashed 
from Revonos' fingers into the wolf's flesh, 
searing it with intricate runes, each inscription 
wrenching forth another anguished howl. Gone were 
any glimpses of intelligence. This was a tortured animal begging for death.

Ba'al offered him a sardonic smile. “Revonos was 
quite distressed at how you provoked defiance in 
his pet. You know who this one is, the friend of 
the master of the Long Scouts, Edward Snow. He 
tried to follow you down the bridge but could not 
enter it. You nearly wore a collar like his. 
Would a good man such as yourself truly leave him 
pet to the Lord of Rage? For my disciple I will 
break that chain and return him to the mortal 
world where he belongs. If you refuse, then there 
will be none to help him and soon there will be 
nothing left of Edward Snow to return.”

Charles closed his eyes for a moment, unable to 
bear seeing the wolf's torture. “Nocturna already 
asked me to bend knee to her in exchange for a 
glimpse of my dead son. I refused her. I will bend to none save Eli!”

“Eli?” A gleaming blue-white coal flickered with 
the impression of a brow sharply raised with 
incredulity. “Eli has done nothing for your 
friends. Edward Snow believed in Eli and you see 
where he is now. You and your wife believe in Eli 
and yet your son is dead. Do you know how long 
your wife prayed to Eli to save Ladero? From the 
first day your son showed signs of illness until 
the moment his flesh was sundered she prayed. Not 
one of her prayers was answered. Not one of her 
prayers was even heard. Eli! You swear to a being 
who is not there for his followers. Your Eli did 
not keep you from turning to stone. Your Eli did 
not protect Edward Snow. Your Eli did not protect 
Caroline Hardy from being raped even as Craig 
Latoner was murdered. Your Eli did not protect 
Jerome from the hands of Gmork who has turned him 
into a beast. Your Eli did not protect the life 
of your son, one innocent and not even six months 
of age when his life was snatched away! Your Eli 
did nothing to prevent these tragedies and offers 
nothing to heal those pains. Your Eli did not 
spare your child the chill of the Raven's altar to beget your quest!

“But I will.” Ba'al swept his arm at the window 
and the image changed. Charles saw a dank chamber 
of stone covered in slime and mold. In the center 
of the chamber was a vaguely humanoid figure that 
bore no clothes apart from badly torn trousers. 
Along his back he had a stripe of black fur 
running along his spine from neck to a short 
tail. His legs were lupine in shape from haunches 
to sharp-clawed paws that dug into the stone. His 
arms were mostly human in shape apart from 
patches of fur and another set of black claws. 
Triangular ears covered in black fur rose from 
either side of his head, and a red tongue dangled 
between cleft lips and long fangs, but no other 
beastly features obscured the face that the rat 
recognized immediately. It was his friend and fellow Sondecki Jerome.

Behind Jerome lurked a shadowed figure that 
seemed more beast than man. Golden eyes glimmered 
from its wolf-like head, and its jaws moved as if 
speaking. He heard no words but he could hear 
Jerome whining like a beaten dog. The sound burned in his heart.

“Jerome is no longer a physical captive to Gmork, 
but his mind and his will are still enslaved. You 
can do nothing to break the bond between them. 
Your friends at Metamor can do nothing to break 
that bond. But I can. Gmork is a creature of 
Lilith, and I am lord of Lilith. If it is the 
desire of my new disciple then I shall break the 
chain binding Jerome to Gmork and I will restore 
his humanity. Your Eli will do nothing. Why would 
you serve a god who does nothing? You are a good 
man, Sir Matthias. You are a reasonable man, Sir 
Matthias. I know that you understand.”

Ba'al swept his arm through the window and it 
dimmed until only the boundary of the hollow was 
visible. His other hand turned the 
diamond-encrusted sword about. Its radiant edge 
made the rat blink and stare. The lord of 
daedra's voice seemed to swell and he could only 
lean into the Åelf. “You are a good man, Sir 
Charles Matthias. You do not want to see those 
you love suffer. You have hated every injustice 
and every anguish you have experienced in your 
journeys through our realms. If it is within your 
power to act to save another, you act. And now, 
it is within your power to bring rest to the 
dead. It is within your power to rescue your 
friends Edward and Jerome. How many others do you 
know suffer that you wish to help? The moment 
that you admit that you are my disciple all of this will be done.

“You can become an avatar of light in my service 
instead of the shade you are making yourself. 
Together we will restore balance amongst aedra 
and daedra. Harmony between us will bring harmony 
in the mortal world. There is none whom you love 
who you cannot save, Sir Matthias. Come, know 
yourself as my disciple and all this will come to pass.”

Charles swallowed and breathed a single word. “No.”

“No?” Ba'al spun the blade again and left it 
spinning. It did not slow but remained spinning 
as he had set it. “No? Do you still seek to pass 
Beyond? Do you understand what that means?” He 
half-turned and gestured to the blankness at the 
bottom of the hollow. Charles flicked his gaze 
there, and then back to the ground. “Beyond is a 
myth. There is nothing else but what you see 
here. The mortal realm and the axis is all that 
there is for your soul. Should you step Beyond, 
you will step into a place from which you can never return.”

“I must go where my son is.”

Ba'al's eyes lowered and he shook his head. “That 
is the one thing you cannot have. He was not 
Lothanasi and so his soul is lost to us. You will 
never have him back and anyone who says otherwise 
is a liar. But,” Ba'al lifted a single finger, 
and a faint smile glimmered in the darkness of 
his face, “I can promise you that you will have 
another child who is Sondecki. I can promise you 
as many such children as you wish to have. But you cannot go Beyond.”

“No,” Charles shook his head, his words firm with 
conviction but as flat as the daedra's. “I live, 
you do not. I can pass Beyond, for the fire of 
life burns within my breast. Only death claims 
you, and death cannot travel Beyond.” Squaring 
his shoulders he raised his eyes from the blade 
to look into the dark lord's simmering blue gaze. 
“I cannot abandon my son. No matter what you promise.”

Ba'al put one hand on the sword hilt and it 
stopped spinning so suddenly the world seemed to 
tilt. In the flat of the blade Charles could see 
a rat whose face, arms, legs, and most of his 
chest were completely black with no variation so 
that no contours could be glimpsed. Neither eyes 
nor nose were distinguishable from the rest of 
his face; only his mouth could be discerned. He looked away.

“You have already abandoned your eldest to 
Nocturna. Be my disciple, Sir Matthias, and I 
will revoke her claim on your eldest child. 
Rebuff me and you shall lose him as well.”

He felt a stab in his heart and yearned to weep. 
Could the daedra lord be speaking the truth? 
Could there be any hope if that was true?

A warmth suffused him from the skin downward, and 
in his mind he felt his master's thoughts fill 
him. Your eldest is still yours. Nocturna cannot 
fulfill her agreement and can make no claim on 
your son. Beyond waits for you, and your youngest 
waits for you there. Ba'al only cannot go Beyond.

“You... you are evil. Good can never serve evil.” 
The fire of his conviction burned deeply, and an 
energy bristled in all of his veins. He felt the 
fur on his back stand on end and sizzle, and the 
black of his skin began to glow like iron heated 
in a forge. He stood taller, hands clenched so 
tight that if not for the coating he would have 
drawn blood from his palms. “Never. Good does not 
balance evil, it defeats it! And you are evil. I 
can never serve you, no matter what you promise 
me. I can never trust you, no matter how many 
truths you use to hide your lies. I will not be 
your disciple. I am not your disciple. I am sworn 
already, Ba'al. I am sworn to Ya...” He cast his 
gaze upward at the Åelf and he smiled. “I am sworn to Qan-af-årael!”

Ba'al said nothing for a long moment. The 
champion appeared to take no interest and seemed 
just as likely to yawn as he was to grasp the 
sword and strike them down. The realm and all in 
it felt utterly still. And then the lord of the 
daedra handed the blade back to his champion and 
stepped to one side. “Be on your way then. But 
know one last thing. You have no idea what it is 
you are doing, what it is you are saying, and 
whom it is you serve. Should we meet again, you 
will be utterly destroyed. Nothing but sorrow awaits you.”

The air snapped with the boom of thunder and the 
hollow was empty. Ba'al and his champion were 
gone. Charles exhaled a long breath and looked 
for them, but they were alone. He lifted his gaze 
to the Åelf and smiled. We've done it.

Indeed, my Núrodur Nuruhuinë. We have endured the 
hells. Come, Beyond awaits. The dangers we shall 
face, and the opposition we shall encounter, will 
be different but no less intense. United together 
we shall reach your son. Do as I instruct at each step and it will be so.

I will master.

Then together let us leave this place.

Master and Núrodur stepped as one toward the 
emptiness at the bottom of the hollow. The 
emptiness stretched outward as they neared until 
the hollow appeared as nothing more than a thin, 
bleak corona. His heart burned with gratitude and 
hope as they took the final step.

And then together they stepped into the world Beyond.

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

Charles Matthias
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