<html> <body> Inchoate Carillion, Inconstant Cuckold By Charles Matthias “This one will do nicely,” the bull Tathom said as he pat his hoof-like hand against the trunk of a mid-age oak. Twenty feet above their heads, a lightning strike had severed one of the larger limbs and it dangled in the brush, not yet fully dead. “Get this one down and cleaned and we’ll call it a day.” Michael the plaid beaver hefted his axe, muscles rippling beneath his fur and light jerkin. In the almost two years that he’d been part of the timber crews, he’d developed a bulk and stoutness that rivaled many trees. Some days he was put on chopping duty, and others on cleaning duty. Every now and again when on cleaning duty he’d just bite the slimmer branches off with his rodent teeth. But he always felt the most invigorated when chopping and so he grinned and took a few steps toward the tree, turning to one side with a lopsided grin. “Do you want the first swing, Lindsey, or can I have it?” Only Lindsey, the very man who’d helped him adjust to life on the timber crews, wasn’t there at his side. “Lindsey?” In the weeks since his return from the far south Michael had grown used to having Lindsey there at his side again. He’d spoken of his adventures, but of the last two months he’d remained almost completely silent. Michael had understood his need for solitude and had not pried. But he’d never just wandered away from the crew before. Michael scanned about, as did several other heads. It was the moose Lance who spotted him. “He’s down there by the road. How did he sneak off like that?” The moose shook his head, newly forming antlers shivering with velvet. The road was a good fifty paces through a trail half wood and half scrub. Michael started on the trail until he got a good look at his friend. Lindsey’s back was to them, but there were three other figures down there next to him. The beaver recognized them as some of his friends from his journey to the south. Lindsey and the tall strange one embraced. Michael averted his eyes and waved the other members of the crew back. “Lindsey’s friends are here. Looks private to me. Let’s start on this tree.” They had chopped halfway through the trunk, wood splinters clinging to his tunic, when Lindsey returned, quiet like a shadow tilting away from the sun. His expression was dour, but that was not unusual for the burly Northerner. Michael grinned, peach-cream skin poking through his red and black fur. “There’s still half a trunk here, Lindsey. You want to take a few swings?” “Aye, thank you.” Lindsey hefted his large axe, felt one finger along the edge, and then slammed it into the trunk. Splinters scattered, and the tree shuddered, groaning as more and more weight shifted to the side. “I’m sorry I left,” he added after brushing a few chips from his beard. “But my friends...” Lindsey swung again, and a second time without finishing the sentence. Michael rolled the haft around in his paws. “Your friends?” “They had to say goodbye. They’re heading home.” “Home,” Michael repeated quietly as Lindsey swung again. He opened his muzzle to say something more, but thought better of it. They’d have to visit that tavern in Sawtry later tonight. Somehow he just knew they were going to hear a story about Habakkuk from their friend tonight. There was a look in the bearded man’s eyes, a look Michael knew meant a certain kangaroo who’d not come back. Lindsey felled the tree in three more strokes, each one more fierce than the last. Michael decided he’d better dip a little bit more into his coin for cups that night. ---------- A paean from the bells! And his merry bosom swells... James tapped the cracked bell lightly with the hammer as he suspended it in air. The gentle throb echoed through the smithy while Malloc looked on with approval. The tone was clear, sonorous, and breached every attempt at description. It pleased Malloc whose grin stretched from one ruddy cheek to the other. His eyes twinkled like dancing crystals. “Well, boy, you’ve coaxed a prettier sound from that bell then it had fore it cracked!” Malloc clapped his hands together and then patted him on the arm. “Any time you want to help out, you’re more than welcome.” James’s eyes savoured the way the light bent around the bell’s conical bore. Everything spun and twisted, turning with each twist of his hand. It weighed only a few stone which made it even more comfortable in his three-fingered hand. “I think this will be all,” he admitted when he finally tore his gaze away. “Thank you for letting me do this, Master Malloc.” He smiled to the age-regressed smithy and to his wife Emily. The rhinoceros clapped her meaty hands together and bleated. “You are always welcome back here, Master James.” Emily gestured at a small tray of sausage she’d just brought for the apprentices and her husband. “If you’d like you may have some. You’ve earned it.” James pondered, but decided his stomach wasn’t up to sausage. “Thank you, but not today. I really should get going. It’s late and I promised Baerle and Kimberly I’d stop by and see if they needed me for anything.” Malloc and Emily wished him well, protesting that he should come back and do more for them any time he wished. He thanked them again and carried his bell in his left hand back to the Glen commons. He wanted to show this to Baerle and Lady Matthias, and of course, the children. They’d certainly be impressed with what he’d done. Fixing the crack had taken a few hours of work every day for a week. But it had been well worth it. His heart leapt in his chest with every resonant note he coaxed Lanterns were lit around the commons even though there was still enough sunlight to see by. In another hour twilight would begin to grip the Glen, shadows becoming greater than the few rays of light that could penetrate the forest canopy beneath which they dwelt. The air was brisk and cooling quickly. James thought about returning to the Inn and bringing his cloak, but decided a little chill couldn’t hurt. One of the wagons owned by the rats from Metamor was nestled against one of the large roots framing the entrance to the Matthias home. A liveried man old enough to have been cursed was busy tending the horses in the stables the knights had built for Charles in January. James waved to him and then walked to the familiar oaken door to the Matthias home. It was very warm inside and smelled of freshly cooked bread and nuts. Tea steeped over the fire and Baerle was there watching it. James smiled to her and then waved to Kimberly who sat on the couch with bright face and whiskers. “Oh, James! Come in, Goldmark’s brought news.” The rat Goldmark was stretched out on the couch, all four legs sticking out from underneath his grey-furred belly. The children were sitting next to him, snug between his paws, though little Erick was busy trying to stab his hearty tail with a little wooden sword. They all chorused, “Welcome, Master James!” when he stepped closer. “And a good evening to you too.” He looked at the rat who had on the courier uniform the rat’s had designed for themselves. A burgundy vest over blue tunic and trousers with boots to match the vest. Only at the moment he wasn’t wearing the trousers. “Ah, James,” Goldmark said with a broad smile. “I was just telling Lady Kimberly the good news.” “Much more cheering then the bad news one of George’s messengers brought me earlier!” Kimberly said in exasperation. “Can you believe the jackal has Charles staying on patrol for a few days more?” James frowned, ears lowering. He didn’t know George at all, except from what Charles had said of him and from the fight in the belfry. But it sounded like the sort of thing those in authority might do. “So he won’t be back tomorrow?” “Not for another two days,” Kimberly added with a long sigh. The children lowered their snouts too, then resumed their play on Goldmark’s expansive lower torso. The rat with six limbs watched the four little rats with broad amusement. But Charles’s wife was quick, like her children, to smile again, a bright thing that set her prodigious whiskers twitching up and down. “The good news the wonderful news that Bernadette’s oldest boy, Richard, is getting married in a few days!” James only knew the kitchen mouse by what Kimberly had said of her. He hadn’t even known she had a son, let alone one old enough to marry! “Oh, well, that is good news,” James replied. “I guess I should begin assembling our things for the journey to Metamor.” Kimberly shook her head, casting a quick glance at Baerle who poured tea for each of them. James followed her glance and watched the opossum a bit sheepishly. The lady rat’s voice was elated but firm, “No, I want you and Baerle to stay here and wait for Charles in case he doesn’t hear the news. You never know where he’s going to be when he’s on patrol! Goldmark and I will return to Metamor with the children tomorrow. I hope Charles can meet us there, but if he comes back here, you can send him straightaway to Metamor.” “Oh,” James added, a little more relieved than he expected. Surely after travelling so long, he was merely delighted not to have to journey again so soon. “Would you like me to do anything while you are away?” Kimberly’s face was almost angelic in its brightness. “Just help Baerle keep the house clean. I expect we’ll be gone a week. The children need to spend more time at Metamor anyway.” “I love Metamor!” Little Charles piped up in his high-pitched voice. His long tail lashed back and forth in excitement, the tip tickling one of Goldmark’s front paws. The six-limbed larger rat shifted on the couch trying not to laugh. “”Is that the bell you’ve been working on?” Kimberly asked, pointing with one claw at the brass bell dangling from the donkey’s hand. James blinked and lifted it so all could see. The four little rats lifted their heads and peered with wide eyes. “Oh yes. I just finished it. Would you like to hear?” “Oh please,” Baerle said as she set the kettle aside and settled on the couch next to Kimberly. “What does it sound like?” James lifted the bell, and with timorous delight, swung downward. The resounding gong warmed the air, soothed the ear, and blotted out all thought other than the vivacious sonority like a lens distorting light. Even the tongues of fire bent and cowed before it, flickering blue an gold before resuming their brilliant vermillion aura. Goldmark gaped and blinked, whiskers gone completely still. The four children oohed in delight, their bodies, so full of nervous energy, for the moment stilled into awe. Baerle had one paw on her breasts, breathing deeply and rapturously. Kimberly clasped her paws together, and eyes translated to joy. “Oh my, James! That is so beautiful!” The donkey blushed in delight, his ears folding back along his spiky mane. “Thank you, milady Kimberly. I am delighted by it too.” Their voices broke the eerie calm that had befallen them, and the children chittered again in playful abandon. Baerle lifted a cup of tea and held it out to James. “Will you join us for tea?” James accepted and felt his chest expand. “Of course. Thank you, Baerle.” He sat down next to Goldmark and set the bell on the table between them. Four little rodent faces, twisted by the curve of the bell, stared back at him from the brass. ---------- “Oh this looks like a wonderful vein,” Sho’s basso voice rumbled in an ursine purr. Her paw stroked down the rocky granite jutting out from the hillside as it rose in a set of ascending bluffs toward the western edge of the Barrier Range. They were on the extreme eastern edge of the valley, two miles out from Jetta, but close enough that standing on the promontory they could easily see the village. An old woodcutter track cut through a thin forest filled with young birch and pine. But their passage had been the first in many years to judge by the clogged undergrowth. Charles, completely stone, ran his fingers through the pearly rock and smiled. This was good solid rock with an agreeable temperament. An hour more and it would readily volunteer itself for the tower. For the first time that day, he truly felt contented with helping in Jetta. How much of that was due to Sho’s unique presence and personality, not being around Saulius, Egland, or Intoran, or spending so much time as stone he wasn’t sure. “There is more than enough here,” he said in his empty air voice, “for at least four towers. I’m not sure the rock will want to give up quite so much, so I’d start with just enough to repair the first.” Sister Sho Rosewain nodded and ran his paws across the vein, claws dragging and delicately sharpening against the granite. “This is very important, squire Charles. Not just to me, but to those who haven’t been cursed. I will not let anyone do as Sideshow did; not if it’s within my power to stop them.” So contented was he by the granite through which his arms had sunk up to his elbows that he didn’t even flinch when she called him squire. “We’d heard rumours of it happening. But I’d never known for sure until I met you, Sho. I’m... I cannot imagine it.” Her eyes darkened as she looked toward the south. “And none ever should again.” She then blinked and turned to the went, shielding her eyes with a meaty paw. “What’s that?” Charles turned, jeweled eyes having no trouble despite the evening sun shining directly on them. He jumped from the rock and grinned. “My friends! That’s Guernef and I think Abafouq and Andares on his back!” He waved to them as they descended out of the darkening sky. The welcome he received was not at all what he expected. Guernef landed a few feet in front of him and squawked angrily, golden eyes burning and intense. “Charles! I have warned you about being stone!” The granite rat fell back a pace as Andares and Abafouq scrambled off the feathered back. Even they appeared astounded at the severity of the Nauh-kaee’s reaction. “I was helping Sister Sho here find good stone for her tower,” he replied, gesturing to the bear who’d tensed and begun to growl. “Don’t you talk to him that way!” Sho snapped and advanced on the gryphon, claws and fangs menacing. “I’ve had enough of monsters bullying others and you won’t do it to him!” Guernef’s eyes became still with avian rigidity and truculence. “I have no quarrel with you. Nor do you understand. Charles has several times nearly lost himself to the stone. It is a temptation he still faces and cannot seem to resist! I have warned him again and again to no avail.” Charles backed up against the promontory and shoved his tail inside the welcome stone. It did a great deal to calm his jagged nerves. “I am not giving into the stone. I’m using it to help a friend.” Sho had stopped her advance, a little uncertain, but still kept a fierce snarl fixed on the Nauh-kaee. Abafouq had one hand on his side as if that were going to hold him back. Andares watched with intense scrutiny, eyes flashing back and forth between them with each breath. But the gryphon’s fiery denouncement of a moment past faded into his more typical avian distance, yet losing none of its intensity. “If you are not giving into the stone, prove it by returning to flesh.” The rat felt an impulse to disappear within the rock behind him, but knew immediately such was foolishness. He stepped forward and willed himself to return to flesh. His heart sagged in his chest and he felt heavier if it were possible. “You see, Guernef? It is something I can do, and I am not tempted by the mountain anymore. I don’t want to be a mountain, Guernef. I want to be a father.” “I believe him, Guernef,” Abafouq said as he gently ran one small hand along the Nauh-kaee’s feathery mane. “I can see things in stone you can’t. It doesn’t look like it has the hold over him it once did.” Guernef narrowed his eyes, leonine tail lashing back and forth, wings alternately spreading wide and folding along his back. Andares steadied the wing on his left and smiled faintly. “Your friend speaks rightly. Charles has been very responsible in his use of stone since Marzac was defeated.” Very simply, the Nauh-kaee squawked, “It still tempts him.” Charles wrapped his paws around the vine at his chest and shook his head back and forth. “I can’t be a father if I’m a mountain. I’ve already lost one child, Guernef. I’m not going to let this take the other four from me.” He felt a hearty paw on his shoulder and saw Sho there towering above him. She had to bend down to even reach him to comfort him. “I believe you, squire Charles. And I thank you again for your help. You have no idea what it means to me.” Charles smiled to her and then looked to his traveling companions. “I know you worry for me, Guernef. And I thank you for that too. I wish I could cool your anxiety, but I can only promise that I am not tempted by the stone anymore. It is, just a part of me, but not the most important part.” “I do not wholly believe you,” Guernef replied in cool tones. “But I must trust you. You have been my friend and I am yours. But now that we must part, I find you stone again. You frighten me, Charles.” “I apologize. But I haven’t been full stone in a long time. I only consented to help Sho find good rock for her tower. Nothing more.” And then the important of the gryphon’s words struck him. “We must part? Where are you going?” “Home,” Andares replied. “For I, the Åelfwood. For Abafouq and Guernef, the mountains. We may return someday, and I hope that we do, but there are many things we must do, many things we must return to.” Charles patted Sho’s paw with one of his own, and then walked to each of his friends and gave them a firm hug, one deeper and more heartfelt than many ever shared. Even Guernef he embraced, the acrimony of a moment gone. “You will all be missed. In a way, I wish we could still be traveling together.” “As do I,” Abafouq admitted with a long sigh. “But life continues and we must return to ours.” Andares had no more words that he could share, but Guernef offered one parting command. With eyes level, beak tilting ever so slightly in his direction, and ears folded back, the Nauh-kaee said, “Be a father.” Then, with the sun dwindling in the sky, Andares and Abafouq climbed on Guernef’s back and the trio disappeared back to the north. Charles climbed onto the promontory so he could watch them, but the trees to the north were too tall and he soon lost sight of them. He sighed, and slipped off the rock, being careful not to let any part of himself glide through it. “Well,” he said to Sho who only just now looked as if she realized what it was she’d been talking to, “shall we head back?” The bruin, blinked a few times to rouse herself form her shaken stupor and nodded. “Next time you come,” she suggested as he remounted Malicon, “bring your children with you. I’d love to meet them too.” His smile was faint but real. “I will. Thank you, Sister Sho, for giving me something real to help with.” As evening settled in and the already cool air took on a chill, they started their return to Jetta. No more words passed between them on their journey. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias !DSPAM:4e67e71725062366718218! </body> </html>