<html> <body> Inchoate Carillion, Inconstant Cuckold By Charles Matthias Charles strokes his furless paw across the top of the half-size beds tucked away in one of the upstairs rooms. Neatly pressed quilts decorated with stylized trees and pine cones covered the soft feather mattresses. The fabric had been cut in several places and sewn over a sign of a Keeper not being careful of their claws. Charles had similarly destroying his linens many times in the past. There were four of these small beds, each hastily made when the children had outgrown their cribs a month past. After returning to the Glen once Kayla had been freed from the evil dragon, he'd spent a few days shaping the wood with James and Garigan; asking Burris would have been simpler and cheating in a strange way. Together they'd gathered the wood and built the frames, doing most of the work out in the stables Saulius and the other knights had built a couple of months before. These new beds would be good for a year or two he hoped. By the time they needed real beds he hoped that his carpentry skills would be good enough to fashion something finer, though he knew he'd likely have to hire help from the local carpenter. Burris would have gladly done the work, and as much as he liked the Woodpecker, he didn't want his children growing up relying on magic to solve all of their problems. If they did grow up. Charles felt his grip stiffen on the footboard and he repressed the shudder that echoed through his muscles from his long toes, along his tail, and up to his scalloped ears. The wood began to crunch beneath his fingers and, startled, he managed to let go and take a step back. “I will see them again,” he said softly, almost whistling the words through his incisors. His paws yanked a chewstick from his belt and he stood there staring at the empty beds as he concentration on his gnawing. The small room in which his children slept had only a few other decorations. A small cabinet at the back stored their clothes and their toys, while a yew was hung from the wall over each of their beds. The walls were warmed by the magic used in the shaping of their tree home. A long green and blue rug stretched from the cabinet to the oaken door with the beds on either side. It was marred by many threads pulled loose by careless claws. Charles bent down and snipped one between his narrow claws. He felt the vine pull taut around his chest as he did so. “I'm just fixing it,” he said softly as if the vine could hear him. Maybe it could. Charles snipped a few more loose threads before standing back up and sighing heavily. Behind him he could hear Baerle's gentle paws climbing the steps up from the main room. He lowered his long snout and waited for her to come and find him. The opossum ducked her head into the room still dressed in her scouting gear. She folded her paws before her, white and black fingers rubbing over one another anxiously. “They will be safe,” she offered quietly. “They will be.” “The Long House is a good place,” Charles admitted with another sigh. “Probably the safest place they could be inside the Keep walls now. But... plague... it finds ways, Baerle. It finds ways through walls and closed doors and windows. It comes down chimneys, it comes up cellars. It finds ways! And it can last months.” Though he did not turn his snout to gaze at her slender and well-proportioned form, he did watch her with one eye. One paw lifted to the end of her snout, and in a very timorous voice she added, “Years?” He snorted and felt a sudden urge to smash his fist into something. “No. Plague kills all of its available victims before it can last that long.” He turned fully away from her and balled his paws into fists against his chest. The need to destroy something, to see something shatter into a million pieces and scatter into the air before him was almost impossible to ignore. She stepped closer and put a paw on his shoulder. “Please have hope, Charles. It won't be forever. They'll be back in your arms...” “Alive,” he added through gritted teeth. “They better be.” He tilted back his head and glared up at the ceiling. “What are you doing here, Baerle?” Her voice was gentle and her whiskers brushed against the tips of his ears. “Angus wanted us to come to Lars's to discuss assignments in an hour. Well, it's been an hour.” “An hour?” Charles asked as he shut his eyes tight. The scarred flesh pulled taut until it stung. “I've been here an hour?” It had only felt like minutes since he'd stepped into his home and moved from room to room and seeing their emptiness. Everything he'd seen had felt fresh and recently touched, but there was no one but himself to touch them. “Aye,” she replied as her paws ever so slightly tightened around his shoulders. He could feel her legs with his tail. “Please come with me, Charles. There's nothing you can do right now. You're only making yourself feel worse.” Charles lowered his paws to his sides to grab his chewstick, but he held it so tightly that it snapped in three places before reaching his snout. He shuddered and took a few steps forward to get away from her. “Maybe... maybe you're right.” He could hear her bend over to pick up the pieces of his chewstick. “Do you need some time to find your Calm?” “Nay,” he said with a long sigh. “I'll be fine.” Yet he didn't move. His tail drooped until it brushed the rug and the splinters. The vine pressed closer to his chest and back, soft tendrils and new leaves resting against his furred flesh like a hundred comforting hands. His ears turned slightly as he heard Baerle the opossum stand back up, her scouting vest tightening against her chest. He breathed, absorbing the scent of his children, sweet and subtle with its gentleness, mixed now with the earthy flavor of his wife's wetnurse. “Charles?” Her voice cut through all his other senses so quickly that his whiskers fluttered in near surprise. “Charles, are you sure?” “Sure?” “That you are fine.” He almost squeaked in bitter amusement at the question. “I am not fine. My wife and children are... I'm not fine. But I will be fine enough. I will... be.” He slowly made himself turn around and look up into her concerned snout. “I will be.” Baerle stared into his face, dark eyes slowly moving across his sloped brow before settling on the black and twisted scar around his right eye. The opossum's whiskers twitched anxiously and compassionately, and yet also, diffidently. Slowly, her thin, dark lips opened to reveal the many pointer fangs hiding behind them. “Then we should go. They're waiting for us.” She held out a paw to him which he stared at for a moment before taking. His paw slid into hers, soft flesh meeting soft flesh. Their fingers curled around one another and the edges of her jowls twitched into a faint but reassuring smile. Charles could not return it, but he did step toward her, and then, alongside her as they walked out the door and then down the stairs. They only let go when they stepped out his front door and walked past the tree roots and into the snow drifts of the Glen Avery commons. ---------- There were only a few empty seats in Lars's brewery when they arrived. Angus was waiting for them by the doorway, arms crossed over his heavy-set chest, a bit of leather caught between his teeth that he chewed between his molars. The badger nodded to them both as the rat stared in shock at the press of flesh inside the bruin's establishment. For Charles, it was like the day he and his fellow Sondeckis had come while Nasoj's forces were assaulting Metamor in the dead of a winter storm. The only Glenner's not present were those on patrol and those tending their families. “Good,” Angus said to them both. “You haven't missed anything you don't already know. Let's get you both a seat.” “Thank you,” Charles said to the badger while trying to smile and failing. Angus led them into the midst of the crowd which had gathered around one of the center long row tables just in front of the main bar. There the gray squirrel Lord Brian Avery stood with a well-used map clustered about by his advisers. Charles recognized Alldis the deer hunter and Berchem the skunk archer, as well as Burris the woodpecker woodmage. When Angus approached several of the scouts he knew parted before the badger to let him through. Lord Avery lifted his head and nodded to the master of the Glen soldiers but he did not smile. The squirrel's eyes noted Charles, and his nose and whiskers twitched, his tail nearly pushing the deer aside in its anxious whipping. “Charles, I am glad you're here, even if I wish you weren't. We may need your special skills in the days and weeks ahead.” “I'll help anyway I can,” Charles replied. He felt a few paws pat him on the shoulder, and he nodded to the other Glenners, each of which was a friend in one way or another. He was surprised that he didn't see James nearby, but he did spy Sir Saulius. The knight rat expertly slipped through the throng to wind his way to his squire's side. Charles felt a brief flash of irritation at seeing his fellow rat and his superior in the knightly ways, but the moment passed quickly. No matter what had come to pass, it had not been Saulius's fault. “Good,” Lord Avery continued. “Now until the quarantine is lifted, we have to keep watch over the roads and woods nearby. Tarrelton and Barnhardt will make sure that nobody escapes the quarantine heading north, so we shouldn't have to worry about that.” There was a mass sigh of relief; none wanted to have to kill fellow Metamorians. “But we do have to worry about the Lutin tribes and other enemies to the north. Word will spread, and when it does, they may try to take advantage of Metamor's weakness. It is up to us to put a stop to that.” Snouts bobbed up and down in agreement. “The Long Scouts are coordinating the defense of the Giant's Dike at Hareford. They have more than enough troops there to keep adventurous Lutins from causing any more than the usual mischief.” “And when they slip past Hareford's troops,” Angus added, the last word almost dripping with disdain, “we'll be here to stop them.” “I have heard good things about their new commander,” Alldis the deer offered with a slight tilt to his head. Velveted antlers were just beginning to grow beside his ears. “They say Sir Dupré is not one to be underestimated.” “I'll believe it when I see him in battle,” Angus retorted. “Enough of that,” Lord Avery chided with a sharp chitter. “Angus, I need you to organize patrol schedules for everyone for the next two weeks. We'll also need some horsemen along the road. Sir Saulius, can we count on you for that?” The rat knight placed one paw on Charles's shoulder and nodded firmly. “My squire and I shalt not fail thee, Lord Avery.” Charles bristled at being so volunteered again, but said nothing. But the squirrel lord narrowed his gaze and fixed the two rats a commanding stare. It was strange coming from a squirrel, but like all else in Metamor, they had grown used to such incongruities. “For now, that is fine. But I have in mind another task for Charles in the coming days. One where no horse is going to be going.” Saulius's paw slipped. “Oh?” Avery gestured at the map, drawing is finger across a line of mountains flanking the valley. Charles recognized Glen Avery and its forest adjacent to the mountains. “After the odious Baron Calephas tried to attack us two years ago, Burris created several talismans to be placed within the mountains that would warn us if the Lutins or anyone else should choose those dangerous paths; only those who seek us harm would risk the mountain road. We don't know how long the quarantine will last, so we'll want these talisman's fully charged. Charles, you have mountain climbing experience and the equipment. Once Burris has readied the supplies you'll need to fully restore magical force to the talismans, will you be willing to venture into the mountains for us?” The rat frowned at the suggestion but nodded. “I can do as you ask; but would it not be better to wait until the mountain passes have opened? They must be choked with snow and ice now.” “They are,” Alldis admitted, even as Avery, Berchem, and Angus nodded as one. Only Burris kept his head still, and that was more from long practice to keep from his hurting his beak than from disagreement. The deer continued, placing a thick hoof-like nail atop the map where the mountains framed the northwestern edge of the Valley. “And they might be until Summer.” “They should be fine,” Burris said with a chirp. The woodpecker kept his wings close to his back as he tried to keep any of the other Glenner's from touching him and putting any of his feathers out of place. “But they might not be. I was hoping to do this myself this Summer but now it shouldn't wait.” “I agree,” Lord Avery said with a quick nod. “How long will it take you to prepare what is needed?” “Three or four days, maybe five.” Burris opened his beak to say something more than closed it and appeared to brood. “I also have some experience in the mountains,” Baerle offered. The opossum stood just behind Charles, the tip of her snout framed by his scalloped ears. “Nobody should go alone.” Lord Avery nodded in approval. “I was hoping you would volunteer. But there's one more who has mountain experience like Charles that I want to have go.” He lifted his head and scanned the gathered crowd pressing on all sides. “James? Are you here?” From the back of the room the donkey's half-bray sounded. “Aye, I'm here.” Glenneres stood out of the way so that they could see across the cavern hall. Lit by a nearby brazier, the donkey's gray hide seemed orange in the warm light. He sat upon a stool against the wall, one hoof resting on a cross-beam, while the other dangled an inch above the wooden planks. Resting in his lap was the broken bell, glistening in the light like a still beating heart in the chest of a slain elk. His ears stuck out from either side of his head casting shadows across his face so that his dark eyes seemed sunken. “I would like you to join Charles and Baerle on the journey into the mountains,” Lord Avery said with a slight nod toward the donkey. “Of course,” James replied. “I'll be happy to go.” “And I'll go,” Angus added, “since I know where the talismans are!” “Then that's settled,” Lord Avery said with a flick of his tail. “Burris, let me know when your supplies are ready. Now, there's much more to do before we are finished. What is next in our defenses?” ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias !DSPAM:4e7e999a177591804284693! </body> </html>