<html> <body> Part 12 Metamor Keep: Keeper's Return By Charles Matthias <x-tab>        </x-tab>Sir Saulius brought the sleighs to a halt just inside the plaza south of the castle’s largest set of doors.  Charles kissed Kimberly on the forehead and grabbed Julian by the shoulder. “Take Kimberly and my children to a nearby Inn.  We’ll come find you when this is over.” His eyes snapped to the opossum. “Baerle, go with them.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Be careful, please,” Kimberly begged as her husband and his friends scrambled out of the fur blankets. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“I will,” he assured her.  And then he leapt to the snowy embankment and with his travelling companions, Sir Saulius, Cassius, and the Longs rushed into the Keep.  They were met by other guards inside who waved them passed.  Lindsey ran the fastest with Andares close on his heels.  Jerome hefted Abafouq in his arms, while Charles and James kept right behind him.  Sir Saulius, Cassius, Misha, and the other Longs all kept pace behind them, weapons drawn and ready. <x-tab>        </x-tab>They ran up two flights of steps, their thoughts only on Rickkter’s quarters and Kayla who was in danger.  On the second landing they nearly collided with Murikeer, George, and a contingent of soldiers running down an intersecting corridor. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Lindsey, Charles!” Murikeer exclaimed. “Thank the gods you’ve come.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“What’s happened to Kayla?” Lindsey asked.  The northerner grabbed Murikeer by the collar and pulled him close. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Murikeer’s tail danced alarmingly but he appeared too intent to take umbrage. “She’s been touched by the same evil that touched Agathe.  I think it’s the Marzac taint.  She’s slowly killing Rickkter.  We chased her into the cellars but lost her.  We’ve doubled back and are retracing our steps.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>Lindsey frowned as the rest caught up and stopped.  Abafouq called over their heads, “Do you know where she might have gone?” <x-tab>        </x-tab>Murikeer shook his head. “And none of George’s men have seen her either.  Not even Andwyn knows where she is.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“She doesn’t even know what she’s doing is wrong,” Lindsey said in a softer voice.  He let Murikeer go and took a deep breath. “She’ll think what she’s doing is necessary, even though everyone around her tries to stop her.  We’ll all be her enemies now.  But she’s going to keep trying to do it...” His face went white. “You said she’s killing Rickkter?  Then that’s where she’ll be.  Let’s go!” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“She’s very dangerous.  Don’t hurt her.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“I’m going to save her!” Lindsey snapped.  He pushed Murikeer aside and then all of them began running down the halls of Metamor.  Murikeer fell into step beside Andares with George next to Misha and his soldiers with the Longs.  A long amalgam of Keepers like a serpent wound through Metamor and all who saw them fled out of their way. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Although Murikeer had wondered whether Kyia might be stymieing their earlier efforts, now they were brought almost immediately to their goal.  Murikeer gestured to Rickkter’s door, and Lindsey did not even pause before crashing through, snapping the handle in his rush.  They were met by a shattered window, the bodies of five Keepers laying about, and the rear end of dragon covered in patches of skunk fur disappearing through the door into the raccoon’s bedroom.  The tail lashed with a heavy scaled spade and knocked Lindsey into Murikeer and Andares who collapsed beneath their combined weight. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Hurry!” Rickkter shouted weakly from the room blocked by the dragon’s hindquarters. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Charles and James tried to help Lindsey to his feet, but the northerner was already past them and into the room a second time. “Kayla!  Hear me!”  The tail lashed again but this time Lindsey ducked to the side. “Marzac has you as it had me!  Listen to me!” <x-tab>        </x-tab>Murikeer was right behind him, weaving his paws in the air as he wove at the stransds of magic invisible to most of the others. “Let me help!” Abafouq said, rushing to the skunk’s side and gripping and guiding the weaves in ways now familiar in their long struggle against Marzac.  Murikeer adapted swiftly and let him direct their spells.  He followed the short stranger’s magical intents and added those of his own as they probed the web of darkness that had consumed Kayla and now showed itself as this dragon. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Get those men out of there,” Misha shouted to the soldiers with a sweep of his arm at the fallen.  Longs pushed into the room to quickly retrieved the five who’d fallen and pulled them to safety while Charles, Sir Saulius and the other Longs all poured in one by one through the narrow door.  Rickkter continued to shout from beyond the doorway his voice becoming more and more desperate. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Grab the other leg,” Jerome gestured at the dragon’s hind legs both still covered in patches by skunk fur.  The tail that ponderously threatened between them was coloured as a skunk’s, but the fur was few and far between the bright scales and thick serpentine girth.  Charles leapt over the tail and as he landed wrapped his arms around the dragon’s right thigh.  Jerome grasped the left, and together they pulled with all their Sondeck.  The tail thrashed and the dragon howled in anger, claws rending carpets and stone as it contended with two Sondeckis of the Black. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Misha, Saulius,  Lindsey, Andares and the other Longs all wrapped their bodies about the tail or middle to help still the dragon while Murikeer and Abafouq strove magically against it.  Wrapped about the dragon’s body was the remnants of Kayla’s clothing including the buckler with the dragon swords which alone was undamaged.  On sudden whim Andares reached for them but the dragon twisted and beat the Åelf against the stone beneath him with its tail despite the weight of Keepers upon it until he collapsed and rolled away. <x-tab>        </x-tab>With all their effort combined they were able to yank the dragon backward.  In its fury it tore the bedroom rood clean from its hinges, revealing a cloistered Rickkter whose appearance was as gaunt as when he’d first woken from his six month sleep.  A circle of protection surrounded him but it was faltering beneath a magical onslaught.  The dragon snapped its head back, golden eyes flecked with jewelled fire. “I am Vissarion!  Kayla has asked me to aid this man!” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Do not listen to his lies!” Lindsey replied, struggling to hold onto the dragon’s midsection.  The dragon’s jaws veered toward him but stopped inches from the northerner’s face.  Lindsey stared into the depths of the beast whose visage bore only a vague resemblance to Kayla’s.  The draconic aspect had all but obliterated her kind and resourceful countenance. “Kayla.  He is lying to you!  Just as that which grew in my pouch did to me!” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“I do not lie,” Vissarion said with an almost magnanimous majesty.  Each of them began to wonder if perhaps they were not in error after all. “I am here only to aid Rickkter who is in need of strength.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“You took my strength from me!” Rickkter gasped.  And then his spell faltered and failed.  The sigils of red light rushed to him and spun about his head.  The raccoon swooned, collapsing in a torpor but not falling unconscious.  He stared blearily out, tongue hanging from his snout, all strength in him sapped as if he were a puppet shorn of its strings.  The eyes, though, burned with a passionate hatred as they gazed at the dragon, his lips quivering as they tried to form a snarl. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Thou sees he has no strength,” Vissarion continued, turning his head back to the raccoon. “I will give him myself and he shall be strong as he is meant to be.  Kayla has asked this of me.  Would thou deny her what she wishes?” <x-tab>        </x-tab>The dragon did not wait for their reply.  His scaly hide became hot as scalding water and all of them flinched away.  Charles, after letting go, turned his flesh to stone and grabbed the dragon’s hind leg again.  But his vine began to squirm and sizzle.  Charles tried to shift to hold the leg without touching the vine to it, but after a few seconds without being able to move the beast unaided he let go again with a gasp of frustration. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Vissarion lunged for the doorway, golden eyes intent, only to be bounced back with an angry snarl from a brilliant pane of energy that flared to vermillion life in the doorway.  The dragon’s sigils left Rickkter and immediately set to the wall of energy while it’s head turned on the skunk and Binoq. “Thou will let me pass.  Thy magic cannot stop the desire of Kayla’s heart.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“A desire you put there,” Lindsey shouted. “You are Marzac spawn and cannot be allowed to live!” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“I was freed from Marzac!” Vissarion objected, even as he began to slink toward the two mages. “Kayla believes this.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>Misha drew Whisper and swung the black axe in a wide arc.  Vissarion flinched back, lowering his head in mock dismay. “I did not wish to hurt anyone.  Kayla did not wish to hurt anyone.  But thy obstinance leaves us little choice.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“This is not Kayla speaking!” Lindsey stood beside Misha, his own mundane axe in hand.  Charles and Jerome flanked him, the rat spinning his Sondeshike.  Andares drew his ivory blade, Saulius and James their swords, George his cutlass, and the Longs each their weapon.  Rickkter’s receiving room was not small but the crowd of warriors with naked weapons made it seem dangerously confined.  Vissarion looked them over each in turn as he coiled in on himself.  The patches of skunk fur dwindled even further as the dragon swelled in size another foot. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Kayla believes me,” Vissarion insisted in a low hiss. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Lindsey gritted his teeth and said in tones of bitter recrimination, “I believed what was in my pouch told me too.  I listened, I trusted, I hoped beyond hope that it was Zhypar’s last gift to me, and that nearly cost me, us, everything!” he cried out in anguish at the memory of hope lost when he had realized how that dark touch had twisted him. “It is lying to you, Kayla.  It will kill us all, Rickkter too!  Don’t forget what Habakkuk warned you in his letter!” <x-tab>        </x-tab>Deep inside the dragon there was a woman still, a woman who loved so deeply that she was willing to listen to the Dragon when it came to her, willing to yield herself to the creature.  And yet she heard every word uttered and saw all that Vissarion saw.  It horrified her and she begged Vissarion not to hurt her friends.  His comforting presence had assured her that nothing he did would bring them more than momentary pain and so far he had kept to that.  But no matter what she asked him not to do, he always asked her to let him do a little more. <x-tab>        </x-tab>And now she began to wonder.  Lindsey’s words struck true and that filled her with fear.  Vissarion assured her they were nothing but falsehood; fear fed by uncertainty, justified by the past, but still false.  She looked at their body and noted that it was almost entirely that of a dragon now.  She felt locked up inside with no escape but for the promise of Vissarion and that too gave her pause. <x-tab>        </x-tab>What had been on Habakkuk’s letter to her?  As the sigils devoured the magical seal skunk and Binoq had placed, she scoured her mind for those few precious words the Felikaush had left to guide her.  Only three had survived the fire.  The last came to her immediately. ‘Rickkter’.  She could never forget the man she loved, and even seeing his name in the kangaroo’s precise script had brought warmth to her heart. <x-tab>        </x-tab>And the second came only a moment later. ‘Swords’.  Somehow they played a role in what Habakkuk saw of her future.  She had kept them because Rickkter was too weak and they’d guided her to listen to Vissarion.  But was that what they were truly meant to do?  She hadn’t heard them speak to her at all in the last day.  In fact, not since she’d spoken to Vissarion that first night. <x-tab>        </x-tab>But the very first word that had been left eluded her.  She half watched as Vissarion kept the Keepers at bay and twisted their draconic body in the confines of Rickkter’s quarters.  His rugs were destroyed, and his window beyond hope, but most of the rest of his things were still intact.  That wouldn’t last if they fought.  Try as the Keepers might, they could not get between Vissarion and the doorway to Rickkter who lay as helpless as a newborn babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. <x-tab>        </x-tab>With a shudder, Vissarion shed the last of Kayla’s clothing, all but traces of her fur subsumed beneath a black scaly hide.  Only two things remained; the swords still buckled about the dragon’s mid-section, and the bracer adorning their left wrist.  Kayla felt very small inside Vissarion and her vision through his eyes began to fade, as if they were holes in a wall that she was backing away from. <x-tab>        </x-tab>But she still saw the bracer.  And with it remembered the first word Habakkuk had given her. ‘Bracer’.  With it she had circumvented the Marquis’s control.  And against it Vissarion had struggled when taking control of her body.  It was either a terrible coincidence or a frightening truth.  She had to know for certain. <x-tab>        </x-tab> Vissarion!  Let me have control of our body again.  They’ll listen to me. <x-tab>        </x-tab>No.  They will only think thee corrupted and it would take too long for me to resume this shape.  Without my strength now, we have no chance of saving Rickkter from them. <x-tab>        </x-tab>They do not wish him harm either. <x-tab>        </x-tab>He will die without me, Kayla. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Then give me control of this body!  They will know my voice! <x-tab>        </x-tab>Don’t thee wish to save Rickkter?  I am the only one who can. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Kayla felt a sickness filling what was left of her.  She didn’t understand how, but she knew Lindsey had been right.  With all her will, she focussed on the bracer, trying to feel what power remained in it.  It had aided her once to free Rickkter from the Marquis.  Now she needed it again to save him. <x-tab>        </x-tab>But Vissarion noticed immediately. <x-tab>        </x-tab>What are thee doing? <x-tab>        </x-tab>Taking my body back! <x-tab>        </x-tab>Trust in me, Kayla! <x-tab>        </x-tab>Not if you will not trust in me! <x-tab>        </x-tab>Kayla doubled her efforts, trying to make Vissarion’s left foreleg respond to her will.  She felt an anger never before directed at her try to push her back.  But she could feel the bracer in her mind and to that she clung. <x-tab>        </x-tab> Vissarion’s head snapped toward the skunk and Binoq as a hand of blue reached in and slid between the cracks of scales.  Kayla grabbed that too despite the dragon’s howls of protest echoing in her mind.  Vissarion was furious and defiant, and seemed incapable of understanding how Kayla could refuse to do as he instructed.  He fought her and tried to seal her inside of his very will, but what she now held she would not let go. <x-tab>        </x-tab>The ghostly blue hand seized at Kayla’s will when she reached for it and pulled.  Somewhere in the fast fading dimness through the dragon’s eyes she saw Murikeer almost upon his knees, both hands extended before him and clutching at air.  “Help me, damn the gods!” the skunk snarled as his body bowed under the effort.  Abafouq darted away from the snapping jaws of the dragon and slid around behind the skunk as Misha leaped forward and swiped menacingly with his shadow black axe.  Vissarion drew his head back swiftly from that deadly magical blade and Misha took a step back.  Still menacing the beast with his axe he grasped Murikeer’s shoulder and lent what little magical strength he could to the young mage’s efforts. <x-tab>        </x-tab>With the Binoq shoring his crumbling magical foundations and the surge of Misha’s strength Murikeer redoubled his efforts.  The spiritual grasp of his magic seemed to gain solidity and strength as Kayla clung to it, centring her will upon the bracer that gave her an anchor of her own, a clarity of inner sight that had saved her once already.  Murikeer’s lips lifted from his sharp teeth and he dug his claws at the flagstones, “Pull!” he shrieked as the fur of his left cheek slumped under a dark, wet weight. <x-tab>        </x-tab>And then the great blue hand pulled her out.  With a gasp, the world returned to focus and Kayla felt limbs of her own again.  She tumbled to the ground next to Vissarion, the bracer on her left hand and the swords round her waist though the rest of her garments remained a torn ruin.  She stared at her friends gathered — far too many for this modest room but enough to keep the dragon pinned — who gazed back at her with surprise and confusion.  Her startled gaze snapped aside to Vissarion whose eyes no longer radiated kindness.  There was a fury in those eyes that had been cleverly concealed from her all this time.  But now the dragon’s duplicity had been made known and any restraint he had shown earlier was gone. <x-tab>        </x-tab>James grabbed Kayla by the arm and dragged her out of the dragon’s way as it thrashed and roared in utter abandon and madness.  Misha swung Whisper down at its mid-section, but the axe bounced off his scales.  With a gasp he shouted, “Muri!  Magic!” <x-tab>        </x-tab>The dragon’s jaws lunged for Kayla’s legs but was met with another barrier of light.  He snarled, eyes narrowing, and began drawing sigils with his forelegs.  Little red chevrons danced in the air and ate away at the magical field.  Alas, the same field that kept the dragon comfined kept them from getting to Rickkter.  In a sonorous voice, Vissarion mocked them. “Thy efforts are vain.  Thou can only delay me.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>James managed to get Kayla to safety behind the line of her friends and Long scouts. “Are you all right?” the donkey asked. <x-tab>        </x-tab>She shuddered, gazing at her furry flesh and feeling so grateful for seeing it again. “Thank you.  I’m well now.”  She reached down and put one paw on the buckler.  The last two words in Habakkuk’s letter returned. “I have one thing I have to do.  Help me up.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>James helped Kayla to her paws and the skunk pushed her way through the crowd come to rescue her and Rick.  She was heartened to see so many there and to realize that she truly did have so many who loved them both and would risk their lives to save them.  But she now knew what Habakkuk had wanted for her to do.  Without any more hesitation, she fingered at the buckle at her waist and lifted the swords free.  She nestled the katana and wakizashi to her chest and kissed the hilts one last time. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Sidling through the tight press, heedless of her fur clad nakedness, she leaned down close to the only other skunk in the room. “Muri, I need to get these to Rickkter,” she whispered into his backed ear. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Swaying in place and panting Murikeer did not spare her a glance and only nodded his head slightly.  Blood dripped from the drooping whiskers on one side of his face. “Do it now.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>‘Bracer’ ‘Swords’ ‘Rickkter’. Her rescue.  The weapon.  And the hand that should wield it!  She stepped through the press of bodies and then flung the swords toward Rickkter collapsed on the bed.  The swords passed through Muri and Abafouq’s magical barriers as if they were not there and landed on the bed.  Clymaethera slid from her scabbard and nestled against the comatose coon’s snout.  Trystathalis lay at her side. <x-tab>        </x-tab>A smile twitched on his lips as he eyed the blades.  Gather the very last of his strength and magic, he thrust forward a paw and wrapped it around the wakizashi.  That only seemed to drive him on further as he felt the inner strength of the blades pour into him.  Sliding from the bed, both swords in paw, Rickkter staggered to where Vissarion lay pinned beneath the magical shield of the Keepers.  There was just enough strength in his legs to bring him into striking distance of the dragon’s back, so that when he did collapse he was able to thrust the point of the blade past those hard, black scales. <x-tab>        </x-tab>At the moment the blade sank between the hard scales and bit into flesh a stunning transformation overtook the raccoon.  Rickkter’s gaunt flesh, so sickly and desiccated, regained in vigour all that it had lost.  His cheeks fleshed and filled out, fur vibrant in hue.  He blinked eyes that no longer seemed rheumy and dead but vivacious and determined.  Strong paws gripped both swords, and with legs replete with muscle and no longer sapling twigs ready to break beneath a strong wind, the raccoon rose from the floor, fury radiating, as he prepared a second strike. <x-tab>        </x-tab>But Vissarion also suffered a change of his own, one as horrific as the raccoon’s was miraculous.  Where once his scales were a lustrous black they now withered like parchment in a fire, drawing back and exposing decaying flesh beneath.  His eyes hardened and sank back within his skull until there was no sign of them.  His roar of fury ebbed into a silent scream.  The flesh sank onto his bones and then disappeared like dust in a gentle wind.  The skeletal dragon, once mighty, writhed and scowled with necrotic rage as his body rapidly withered.  Wicked spiked vertebrae on its tail lashed toward the Keepers who steeled their weapons to take the blow.  They were still knocked from their feet.  Murikeer sprawled bonelessly backward under Misha’s thrown weight, bowling into Kayla and almost swooning as his shields flickered madly and winked out. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“This ends now,” Rickkter snarled, bringing the larger blade, Clymaethera, to the fore. “You’re dead!” <x-tab>        </x-tab>Vissarion snapped with his jaws but Rickkter leapt to the side and snapped up the kata against the strike.  The blade bit clean through the bone and sheering loose a shard that clattered against the ground before disintegrating into black dust.  Vissarion leapt backward against the other wall smashing Rickkter’s worktable to splinters as he scraped at his shorn jaw with both forelegs. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Rickkter roared and ran after him, blades swinging, pieces continuing to fall from the dragon.  Misha leaped to his paws and broke from the crowd first, driving Whisper into the dragon’s thighbone.  This time the black axe shattered the bone with a crunch.  Charles, Saulius,  Andares, Lindsey, and all the rest joined them, hacking and smashing the dragon’s bones in a fury.  Vissarion thrashed, kicked and clawed for a few moments, but his end was already come.  Only moments after Kayla was yanked free, moments after the swords had been returned to their master, there was nothing left of the great dragon Vissarion but a pile of bones and black ash. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Silence settled in the wake of the dragon’s end. <x-tab>        </x-tab>A still silence but for the sigh of the cold wind from the open window and the panting of the Keepers as they stood scattered amongst the wreckage of the room. Kayla was the first to move.  She let Abafouq take Murikeer’s somnolent weight and dashed across the room and throwing her arms around Rickkter. Burying her head into the renewed thickness of fur on his neck she wept openly. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“I’m so sorry!  He told me he could save you.  Even the swords believed him.  I’m so sorry!  I’m so, so sorry!” <x-tab>        </x-tab>Rickkter wrapped his arms around her in turn, holding her close as he nuzzled the back of her head and neck. “I know, love. I know.” He whispered tenderly into her ear, his voice sweet and full of life. “It’s over now. You’re safe. And you saved me.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>“I almost killed you,” she whimpered. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Pushing her back, Rickkter gazed tenderly into his eyes as he rubbed away her tears with one paw. “No, Marzac almost killed me. Twice. And you saved me from them. Twice.” He pressed his muzzle lightly against hers in a kiss. “I couldn’t ask for a better love, ever.” A mischievous smile spread across his muzzle as he pulled into a tight embrace once more. “Speaking of which, love, you might want to go to my room and put something on before any more people see you in the fur.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>Blushing in embarrassment, though a smile still on her own muzzle, Kayla hurried to do so as Murikeer, helped staggeringly to his paws, and Abafouq bade everyone step back from the ruin that was now Vissarion.  Only Rickkter and Andares stayed at their sides, and the four of them in concert drew magical wards about what was left of Vissarion’s body.  The power of their incantations gathered every mote of dust together, compacting it down until it was all sealed inside a glowing orb no larger than a melon. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Wait,” said Rickkter, moving off from the group to hunt for something amongst the wreckage near the windows. They could see his nose twitching as he clearly was sniffing something out. Eventually finding what he was after, he returned to the other three and tossed what he had found into the orb before casting the final seal on it. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Was that one of the pastries I got you earlier?” Misha asked, blinking in disbelief. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“Aye, it was,” Rickkter replied, a paw on his hip. “I figure if there’s anything still left alive in there, I want it to suffer.”  He grinned a feral, toothy leer, “Oh, and that atrocity that Caroline forced me to read.” <x-tab>        </x-tab>There were an appropriate number of groans and a few chuckled from around the room.  Misha’s jaw hung and after a moment he snorted humorously. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“So what shall we do with this?” Murikeer hissed. “It is too evil to let anyone even touch it.”  He leaned heavily on the strong shoulder of the Binoq at his side, his face twisted into a grimace of sustained pain. <x-tab>        </x-tab>“The last time,” Lindsey said as his eyes searched them for something, “we put it in a metal canister, one magically protected against rust. And then we cast it into the deep sea, where it could do no more harm.” His eyes gazed into Rickkter’s room where even now Kayla rummaged for something to wear.  The northerner sighed, arms reaching out as if he were giving a comforting hug. <x-tab>        </x-tab>Murikeer glanced aside at him and sucked a breath through his teeth, “Where even the slightest taint of whatever laid upon Marzac remains there is ever the danger that it may grow.  It is a cancer that, I fear, even excising will never fully and truly destroy.”  He sighed and leaned against an overturned table, “Creation requires entropy, to our eternal pain.”  He pawed at his left cheek with one hand and stared numbly at the dark stain of blood upon his fingers. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias !DSPAM:4b99880d139081122247586! </body> </html>