<html> <body> Some very important scenes today. Inchoate Carillion, Inconstant Cuckold By Charles Matthias March 8, 708 CR There were many advantages to being a tree scout. Being an opossum, it felt natural to Baerle to be scrambling around through the high branches away from the forest floor; it conveyed a sense of safety to her that was instinctual more than coherent. None of the bigger predators could reach her up in the trees, and those few that could climb after her she could easily evade. Or so the little whispers in the back of her mind told her, even if they could not even use words to do it. The feeling of safety was like a shawl draped over her body when she perched on a solid branch, her tail curling around its haft. One of the biggest was that it allowed her to keep clandestine watch on her friends down below whenever they were in the Glen or nearby. That morning, in the still cool hours when the sky had no sun but brightened like a sapphire in anticipation of its arrival, she chose once again to watch the rat Charles Matthias as he crouched and wept over his lost son in the Follower graveyard. The boy Ladero's death had been an agony for her, even more so for Kimberly. How well Baerle could remember the many months in which she'd felt that little boy's muzzle at her breast taking nourishment. It was the closest she who was barren would ever come to motherhood. She had cried herself to sleep several nights thinking about that sweet little boy who'd bravely faced a horrific death that he neither understood nor deserved. But the wound had mostly healed. Until Charles's return had ripped it wide open again. And with it, the long postponed yearning in her heart to be more than just a nursemaid for Charles. Kimberly had offered to let Baerle be Charles's mistress if her husband so desired her. It had come through tears, but also through a love and pity for the barren opossum that made Kimberly one of the bravest people Baerle had ever known. Charles knew nothing of the offer. The desire to have Baerle as his mistress had to come from him. And with Kimberly and the other children gone and the man she loved grieving, she knew that she could offer herself as solace. She knew that he was at his most vulnerable now and that it would be so very easy to help him find comfort between the sheets of his bed. But could she live with herself if she took advantage of him like that? Could Kimberly still love her as a sister if she took advantage like that? Her tail tightened about the branch as she leaned forward ever so slightly. Below her in the shadowy grove Charles knelt on the ground, his hands pressed into the stone of the marker. He'd brought a lantern with him, and the light glistened off his granite flesh. She'd touched him once when he was stone, and it had been cold and lifeless, yet moved beneath her. It had frightened Kimberly and intrigued his children. Baerle didn't quite know how she was supposed to feel about it. But as she watched, heart torn, eyes beginning to tear over the poor boy and the family that missed him, Charles began to sink more and more of his body into the marker, arms up to the elbows vanishing within the stone, making it bulge and swell in all directions. Her one hand holding the branch tightened, claws digging into the bark, while her other quickly brushed the tears from her face. The rat didn't stop pushing, forcing his head into the stone cross until it blended like puddy. She gasped as he shoved himself into the marker up to his chest, the vine that wrapped about him shifting to curl around the stone marker. What should she do? Was there anything she could do? Baerle considered scrambling down the tree to try and stop him before he turned himself completely into a gravestone. Could she even pull him back out? Baerle would try anyway. She scrambled along the branch with all four paws and started bouncing down the main trunk of the tree from one branch to another before she stopped and breathed a sigh of relief. Charles, after pressing down almost to his waist so that he was but a tombstone with legs and a tail, withdrew his upper body which gained definition with each inch. Baerle breathed a sigh of relief and quietly made her way back up redwood. By the time she resumed her perch, Charles was standing over his body's grave now fully flesh again. He made the sign of the yew before his chest, trembled in anguish, before picking up the lantern and walking back toward the Glen commons. Baerle shut her eyes tight to keep any more tears from flowing. It took her several minutes to calm herself enough to open her eyes. The opossum lifted her gaze up through the boughs of needles, cones, and branches toward the brightening sky. Her breath sagged in her chest and even her tail relaxed and loosened its grip. The trembling in her paws ceased as her eyes absorbed all the interweaving strands of tree before her. She couldn't. Baerle knew that. With a long sigh, a sigh filled with love for the Matthias family, especially her sister whose heart she was sick of hurting, she knew that she had to let Charles go. Even if he made an advance toward her, she could not let him. For the sake of their family, Baerle offered her love for the rat back to his wife. The opossum took several deep breaths, marveling anxiously as her heart kept beating. It wasn't broken. Sore, lonely, but still beating. Tentatively, she slid down to where the branch emerged from the main trunk. There she crouched with her head between her knees and her tail wrapped tightly about the bark. Whispered prayers and sobs echoed in her throat, but neither slipped past her snout. ---------- James kept quiet during that day's scouting mission. Berchem lead around the other side of the lake and toward the base of Mt. Kalegris. This time they flushed some game and returned to the Glen with the carcass of a dead elk dragged on a travois, but they still found no sign of Lutins or bandits. Ralph and Anson warmed to him and expressed confidence that he would do well in the mountains in a few days. Berchem offered no such sentiment. They caught the elk in the afternoon, and so once they'd dressed their kill, they headed back to the Glen. James could hear the bell thrumming in his pack with each step they took. The bell was anxious and eager. Hungry. After bringing the elk to Jurmas at the Inn – the irony of a deer preparing an elk for feasting struck James as particularly hilarious just then – they reported their findings to Lord Avery before being dismissed for the night. James lingered until the others had dispersed and then leaned in closer to where the gray squirrel and badger sat conferring. “Milord Avery, have I proved myself capable?” The squirrel frowned, apology writ in his dark eyes and lowered whiskers. Even his tail slowed its jerking from side to side. “You have, James. I'm sorry we doubted you. You will be going once the supplies are ready.” “You are a very capable scout and warrior, James,” Angus added with warmth and a bit of pride. “I'll be delighted to have you at my side when we go.” James took a deep breath and nodded, his ropey tail flicking back and forth once with his relief. The bell chimed delicately. He would have his chance to be alone with Baerle after all. He sucked his lips back against his teeth for a moment before asking, “When will we be leaving?” “In two days,” Angus said with a grunt. “Burris should be finished by tomorrow. The supplies are almost ready.” “I'll be ready with mine as well,” James said. “Now, I'm going to get something to eat. More scouting tomorrow. Good night, milord. Angus.” He bowed his head to them before leaving the brewery. And he did as he promised. He walked the short distance up the hill and to the Inn. Several other scouts were there, including Ralph, Anson, and Berchem. They were seated in a cluster with some of the other scouts. James joined them, still carrying his pack over his shoulders. Jurmas the deer came by a moment later and offered them each something hot to eat. The donkey didn't even ask what it was, simply agreeing to whatever the others wanted. Ralph, it turned out, had a veritable library of ribald stories that he could summon with the click of a tongue. James listened and laughed with the rest of them as they ate. His eyes strayed to watch the skunk from time to time, but otherwise he just enjoyed the vole's scandalous tales. After a dozen, Ralph decided he'd rather drink than talk and so they settled into a few rounds of bock from Lars's brewery. The cheer was infectious, and for most of the scouts, it helped them forget for the night about the terror that was the plague gripping Metamor. But James could never forget his true purpose. The thrumming of the bell against his back kept his mind focused and clear. Each reverberation seemed to dissipate whatever beer he'd drunk so that his mind was crisp and alert like a new dawn. It took three rounds before the skunk decided he'd had enough. “I've a few things to attend to before I get too inebriated,” he said as he stood up and extricated his legs from the table bench. Berchem's eyes were a little jittery, but his tongue was sure and his movements as fluid as they ever were out in the forest. “It's always a pleasure, my friends. But I bid you a good night.” James lifted his mazer toward the skunk while Anson and Ralph and the other scouts all wished him a good night's rest. The donkey lingered a couple minutes more before similarly excusing himself. The fox and vole wished him well and promised to see him in the morning for another day of scouting the forests around the Glen. “I'm looking forward to it,” he assured them as he hoisted his sack. The bell throbbed with a silent peal against his spine. Although he lived at the Inn, he did not head toward his chambers. Instead, he followed the skunk out into the evening twilight. The air was cold and his breath curled in twin plumes from his nostrils. James's tail tuft danced against his hocks. He lifted one hoof after the other and set them down against the hardening crust left behind when the snow had been cleared last. He followed the path from the Inn down to the Glen commons and then north through the first line of trees. It was in the second line of trees that the skunk made his home. Between a pair of roots that pressed close together nestled the slanted door. It closed with a thunk behind the skunk's disappearing tail, and with it what little light he'd carried through the twilight. James crept around the line of massive trees, careful not to trip over any of the snaking roots as they dug into the earth, and stood for several seconds a dozen paces from the door. James slipped the pack over his shoulders, undid the drawstring holding the top flap tight, and then shifted through the remains of that day's meal to retrieve his cracked bell. His hide shook as if dislodging flies when his hand met the iron. Thick fingers stroked across that smooth conical surface, savoring the bore; the tips of his hoof-like nails tickled the clapper. Tolling. He nodded in silent acquiescence. It was time. James lifted the bell from his pack and held it firmly in his right hand. After retying the drawstring and slinging the pack over his shoulder, the donkey walked with gentle hooves across the pitted ground until he stood before the door. It angled away from him between the roots and bore no markings to identify it as the skunk's home. But there was a pungent musk pervading the air that made his nostrils twitch. He kicked the bottom of the door with one hoof as if he were knocking. Berchem's voice sounded beneath him. “Who is it?” “It's James,” he replied. “There was something I needed to speak with you about. I... I didn't want to do it in front of the others.” He could hear the skunk grunt under his breath before saying, “Just a moment.” Claws clicked against wooden steps in front of him, and then he heard a wooden bar lifted out of the door. “Come on in.” James kept the bell behind him as he lifted the door. It swung upward, revealing a set of descending stairs at the bottom of which stood the skunk. Berchem stepped out of his way and grimaced. “I don't have much to sit on. What's on your mind, James?” Berchem wasn't lying. The stairs led down to a single room home. To the donkey's left was an array of fletching equipment neatly organized in racks, while next to them was a clothes chest and armor tree. On a stand in the middle of the room was a lantern providing soft lighting in every nook and cranny. Beyond and fashioned from stone into the roots of the tree was a hearth that had been used the previous night. Next to that was a single pallet with a plain green quilt draped over its length. The Matthias children played in a room larger than Berchem's home. James pulled the door shut behind him and leaned against one wall to keep the bell concealed for a moment more. “Something you said yesterday has kept me thinking. You said that Baerle wasn't worth it. What did you mean by that?” Even before the donkey had asked his question, Berchem's expression had been one of mild impatience. The skunk wanted James out of his home so he could get some sleep or whatever it was he'd intended to do. But with the mention of the opossum's name his muzzle turned sour, his eyes darkened, his ears lowered, and his tail lashed back and forth. He growled under his voice, “Just forget about her.” James lowered his snout an inch, letting his eyes more fully bore into the skunk. “I want to know.” He curled his wrist back, lifting the bell behind him. Berchem crossed his arms once, and then uncrossed them, gesturing at the stairs with one paw. “No. Save yourself the pain and forget about her. Now if you have nothing else, please leave me to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be another long day, and we all need our sleep.” Too much horrified to speak! James shook his head. “No, Berchem. You are going to tell me. What did you mean?” He let slip his arm and struck the bell in the air. The chime cascaded from wall to wall, a clear brazen tone that made his heart quicken. The skunk blinked once and then slapped his paws over his ears and doubled forward, hackles raising along his back. “What in all the hells?” he shouted, daring to reach one paw out to grasp James's wrist. But James took a step back and swung the bell again. The gong dropped Berchem to his knees, eyes shut tight, and his entire body quaking with each echoing peal. He gasped, long tongue pressing past his fangs as he tried to find some avenue to escape the ricochet of sound in his mind. Tolling, tolling, tolling. James struck the bell one more time, his nostrils flaring as he watched the skunk crumple to all fours and shrink in stature nearly a foot as his body pulled inward as if making himself smaller would help him escape from the cracked bell's sonorous tones. “Answer my question and I won't ring the bell anymore. Tell me the truth.” Berchem lifted his head and hissed through his fangs. James ground his teeth together, and smacked the skunk in the head with the bell. He flipped onto his back and rolled around, kicking off his breeches in the process, and nearly upending the lantern as the echoing tone rolled on and on. And he rolls, rolls, rolls. “Do you want another paean from the bell?” James snapped, nearly braying in a fury that swelled with every throbbing monotone. The skunk's eyes ran with tears as hands that were nearly paws rubbed over his face trying to seal off his ears. His legs twitched in the air, shrunk to only half their normal size, while his tail snagged itself in one of the crossbeams beneath his pallet. As the tone faded, Berchem's voice began to chirp and churr, and the words that he spoke could barely make the claim to be such. “I loved her.” James sneered and lifted the bell for another blow. Berchem shielding his face with one paw and whimpered like a child. “I did! I did!” They can only shriek, shriek, out of tune! James's lips flecked with spittle and he stomped his hooves near the skunk's head. “Tell me. Tell me or,” his two-fingered hand curled tighter about the handle of the cracked bell The conical bore glimmered with a fiery sheen in the lamplight. Berchem's eyes were rimmed with white as he stared fixedly at the bell. He swallowed heavily, his limbs and shape ever so gradually resuming human proportions. James glowered at the skunk and twisted the bell back and forth in his hand; the clapper tickled the inside of the bell with a faint tintinnabulation. “Well? In a night, or in a day, in a vision, or in none. Tell me!” Berchem rolled onto his right side, his hands splaying across the wooden floor as his legs hunched up, his chest heaving for each breath. “She came to the Glen almost two years ago,” he said slowly, his whiskers trembling as his snout and tongue formed each word. “From Mycransburg. The last of her family died. She was already a competent archer, so Lord Avery placed her under my tutelage. She was fetching and warmed to me quickly. When I learned that her family was gone, I comforted her. It didn't take long before it became something more.” For the heart whose woes are legion. Yet the ear tells in the jangling, and the wrangling. James ground his teeth together and steadied his grip on the bell. What a horrid thought it was to think that Baerle had once had feelings for this skunk who dared to say such vile things about her. The very image of Baerle resting her narrow-snouted head against the monochromatic chest fur of this striped, saturnine scout – not to mention running her gentle and nimble fingers through that same coat – inflamed his gorge as if it were a fresh wasp sting. “Villain!” James sneered with a bray. “You lie about Baerle! She would never be with you!” Berchem's jowls drew back over his fangs and he hissed back at the donkey. James lifted his arm, ready to strike his bell again, when the skunk leaped into him. He brayed in surprise as a vice-like grip clamped down on his right wrist, while the other hand grabbed him around the throat and squeezed tight. “You little shit!” Berchem snarled as he pushed James back against the stairs. “I did love her! I did! What by all the daedra has possessed you? This bell... this bell is evil!” James swung his free arm and struck the skunk on the back several times, and kicked with his hooves but the skunk responded by pressing his claws against his neck and forcing him with strength along to buckle toward the ground. Berchem's eyes, once filled with fright, were now livened by rage. “I don't know what this bell is doing to you, but it ends now. “ The stairs bit painfully into his back, and his tail lashed beneath his as he struggled with his hooves to gain some purchase, clattering against the wood as fruitlessly as if it were ice. His chest heaved and his throat coughed beneath the skunk's grip; the world swam above him, the only thing certain was the mephit's burnished fury. He tried to shake his hand to make the bell ring, but he couldn't even summon the faintest of tinkling from the clapper. What had he been thinking in trying to challenge Berchem like this? The skunk had been training as a Glen scout his entire life. James had barely more than a year's worth of experience to boast of; and no matter how much Charles, Angus, or anyone else assured him that he did have reason to boast, he knew it was just the pity of his betters speaking. What could he possibly do against somebody as experienced as this skunk who was methodically strangling him into unconsciousness? Tolling... Even the murmuring of his bell seemed a distant thing to him as the world above lost focus. He vainly tried to pull Berchem's hand from his neck, but the skunk's grip was as sure as a lodestone's. Darkness caressed his thoughts and scampered about the edge's of his vision. His throat ached for a single clear breath. What good were his boasts about killing that Sondecki if a skunk who had no magical ability could topple him and conquer him so easily? Tolling... Then again, how could he even claim he'd killed Zagrosek? The massive carillon had accomplished that. He'd merely cut the rope holding them up in that vaulted ceiling. His mind vacillated between the concerted, beastly face before him and the visions of the dark night where he dreamed of joy departed. The vaulted chamber with walls a mile distant swelled before him. How it swelled; how it dwelt on the future. Tolling. If he fell unconscious, they would separate him from the bell. Baerle would hate him. Charles would be disgusted with him. Angus would be disappointed in him. And Berchem, he who had cast such vexatious imprecations on the sweet opossum, would always be the stronger than he. James screamed inside as he tried to yank the paw from his neck. The claws dug in deeper as his efforts grew weaker. Tolling. His head fell back against the wooden steps, and in his half-waking nightmare, he could see up into the darkened ceiling at the vast rim that stretched before him. The shadows, for a brief moment, glimmering with a translucent phosphorescence, parted to reveal what hid there. James felt as if he were the greatest of fools. The bell he held in his hand was exactly the same bell he had dropped on Zagrosek! Tolling! How could it have come all this way with him? Weren't the bells from the Chateau destroyed? A lonely spirit guiding. Guiding him, but why? I dwelt alone in a world of moan, and my soul was a stagnant tide. My soul at least a solace hath in dreams of thee, and therein knows an Eden. They wanted to be with him. James felt such a certain delight in knowing and in being. The bells wanted to toll and toll for him. They would! This skunk could never silence them! James straightened his eyes and with one last burst of energy slapped his free hand against the ground as if he held the bell in that hand instead of his constrained right. The air split with a clear tone that silenced all other noise. That single note encapsulated the unity that existed between James and the bell. It did not echo, but lingered like a living presence finally come to dwell in their midst. Berchem gasped at the sound, his grip on the donkey's neck and wrist weakening as he recoiled from the pressure radiating from James's body. With a snap of his wrist, James rang the bell again, doubling the tone so that there were now two notes shimmering in the air in exquisite harmony. The skunk trembled, trying vainly to keep his grip on James's neck to squeeze the last of his air, but already his claws were slipping against the donkey's thick hide, the callused pads on his fingers losing definition as his arms began to shrink. Tolling! James swung the bell again, and the chord hung in the air like a choir of heavenly voices. Berchem's eyes shut tight as he finally let go, crumpling back in a pile of warping limbs and tail. James put his hooves beneath him and stood, towering over the simpering creature. James could feel the three bells cascading over his hide and through his ears. This was their voice proper, and it commanded obedience. “Now,” he said in a firm rumble that nevertheless blended harmoniously with the music of the carillons. “Tell me of Baerle. If she loved you too, then why did she leave you?” Berchem quivered for several long seconds, trying to crawl toward the quilt-covered pallet, before James stepped on his tail and ground it beneath his hoof. The skunk hissed, but couldn't crawl any further away. The glamor of the bells faded some, but still rang in the air with a crispness like ice at dawn. “Tell me.” “She lied to me,” Berchem said through clenched fangs as his head dwindled in stature. “I told her what I yearned for. A family. A son. She knew she was barren and said nothing! Nothing until after I asked for her paw in marriage!” He spat his words and dug his claws into the wood with both hands and feet. His thumbs looked just like his fingers so beastly had they become. James swung the bell once, but said nothing. The shimmering fourth note clung to the air and battered the skunk's head into the ground. His forehead sank back as his body began to drag along the floor, slipping free of his tunic, and gathering toward his tail where the donkey's hoof kept it fixed. Berchem's claws gouged the wood floor in long narrow trails. The skunk's fury for one moment vanished. His eyes stared across the small chambers filled with so little and they brimmed with tears. “All I've ever wanted is a son. I could teach him to hunt, shoot, and scout. I could teach him to be a good man.” The skunk took a deep breath and then lifted his head over his shoulder to glare at James. “Baerle should have told me she was barren when I told her what I hoped! She lied to me and waited until much later! She lied!” James kicked him in the haunches with his other hoof firmly enough to snap the skunk out of his tirade, but not so much to actually break the bone. “What did you do to her?” “I told her we could never be together!” Berchem was almost completely a skunk in body now, yet his tongue could fashion words that seemed to make sense through the sonorous chord. James readied another kick, when Berchem arched his back and sunk his teeth into James's fetlock. A furious bray escaped his throat as he kicked his leg forward. The bell struck three times more in his fury, adding a fifth, sixth, and seventh note to the symphonic utterance. The cascade of sound battered the skunk across the room, forcing him to shrink until he was a complete skunk. He buried his head into the quilts, frantically digging to escape the chorus. James savored the polyphony, seeing the massive carillons tolling in their belfry where once they had watched over the house of Marzac. Bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells. “You threw her away.” James said as he walked slowly toward the pallet, his body nearly floating as the waves of sound lifted his limbs. “You cast aside her. She who is worth hundreds, nay, thousands of you! Stupid little beast!” The skunk lifted his head for a moment, ears backed against his head, and chirped, “There's more!” James blinked and stood still next to the lantern. He lifted the bell and pressed it against his chest. The warm vibrations coruscated through his heart and veins, even as they fled from the room, leaving a strange sort of silence in their wake. They, those mighty bells, were not gone, only in reserve. And with their absence Berchem's body began to grow again, human definition overcoming the mephit form. The donkey's voice growled like an ostinato, sullen and bereft of compassion. “What else is there? Speak or I bring eight and nine. You will not survive nine.” Berchem crouched on the pallet tangled in the mass of quilts. His limbs were still short and he had true paws instead of hands, but his head had regained its human stature. A thin line of blood trickled from one of his ears. He barely managed to make his ragged voice work, “Last year I was very drunk one night. So was Baerle. We came back here as if nothing had happened between us.” He paused for breath, dark eyes warily watching the bell, but what fight was left in him seemed to be reserved for telling this final tale. James lifted the bell half an inch and the skunk quickly resumed. “We weren't so drunk that we couldn't figure out what a man and woman are supposed to do. And it was... quite wonderful for a little bit. And then she called his name.” A dark hand gripped James's heart and his ears lifted high over his head. His tail fell straight between his legs and his nostrils widened with a deep inhalation. “Who's name?” Berchem looked him straight in the eye, a defiance there undimmed by the lingering traces of the seven bells. “You know. Charles.” James ground his teeth together. “Nay!” “Oh, Aye! Baerle thought she was a brimming Charles!” He shook his head back and forth, braying a scream. “Nay! It's not true!” “Of course it is! You've seen the way they look at each other. She's his mistress as surely as Nasoj is an damn wizard! And that's why I told you to forget about her. She's a brimming slut who'll break men's hearts just to get a little more tail!” James swelled to his full height and drew his lips back across his teeth. “You! You!” He lifted the bell over his head. One swift blow would cave in the repulsive skunk's head. Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget. The sweet ministrations of his bells stilled that vicious anger and afforded him a moment to consider things clearly. He had seen all of the looks and words that had passed between his beloved Baerle and his friend Charles. He'd known that there was at the very least affection if not intimacy between them. Could he truly deny it now? No, he could not. But he would not give the skunk's story credence. If Baerle and Charles were adulterers, then it could not have been brought to pass by the opossum. His friend was the culprit; Charles who always worried whether James could handle the tasks before him; Charles who always felt he had to compliment the donkey for every little achievement in order to make it seem greater than it really was; Charles who boasted of his skills as a scout, as a knight-in-training, and even as a writer and anything else he attempted to do; Charles who made friends with everyone he met and could do no wrong even when he betrayed Metamor to her enemies; Charles who had a wife and children already and yet was so greedy that he had to take the one that James loved; how could James even call him friend anymore? There was no other course of action left to him. It pained him, given that Charles had helped him get back on his hooves after he'd lost everything in Nasoj's winter attack. But had the rat acted out of love for James, or from his own vainglory and for the chance to boast of his charity to a poor Keeper who obviously couldn't fend for himself? James ground his teeth together, lowering the bell slowly as his rage shifted from the skunk before him to the one for whom he once would have done anything. Charles was even more skilled of a warrior than Berchem. He would need the element of surprise. And he would need Baerle to see the rat for what he really was. The answer came to him without even any prompting from the bells. The journey into the mountains was the key. There he could unmask that traitorous rodent for what he truly was. But if Berchem were dead, others might know that it was James who killed him. And if Berchem were alive, then surely the skunk would tell others what he'd done and he'd never be united with his opossum. Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget. He chortled under his breath as the bells reiterated their will. James's eyes fixed on the skunk still cowering in the quilts half-way between a man and a beast. Of course the bells could contend with such a conundrum in so simple a way. He gave the bell one last shake. The eighth tone gushed like a wave from the clapper and the bore, his entire arm shimmering so that it seemed to fade in and out of the lamplight. Berchem's eyes widened once, and then he collapsed unconscious sprawled across the quilt. James lifted the bell to his lips and kissed fervently, licking the bore as he gasped for breath. He rubbed its smooth surface across his muzzle, and pressed the crack down across his nostrils. Thick lips felt along the edge of the crack, while his tongue explored within, wrapping around the clapper as the tones rang across his ears in ascending arpeggios. Within he could feel the ninth tone glimmering with ineffable potential, the final tumbler to some esoteric lock. So shake the very Heaven on high with tumult! James withdrew his tongue and lips from the bell and slowly let the brazen instrument fall to his side. “With Baerle,” he said softly, his vision racing with dreams of the opossum wrapped in his arms. He smiled and fancied pressing his lips to her snout, her neck, her breasts each in turn. And then lower. Oh how he longed for that day when she would fancy doing the same and more for him. He reposed in such sweet reverie for nearly a minute before the donkey finally glanced around the small home. Other than the bell he'd brought nothing else with him. He knelt down and picked up the skunk's tunic and breeches. These he folded quickly and placed next to the pallet where they were in easy reach. James turned to the stairs but paused after taking a deep breath and recognizing his own earthy musk in the air. While there were several other equines who lived at the Glen, a few donkeys amongst them, no one would mistake James's scent for theirs. But lo, a stir is in the air! James nodded to the unseen presence. He noted the two windows in either side of the small home, then turned his attention on the hearth. James struck the flint a few times before he was able to light the kindling. He nursed the little flame with his breath until it contentedly consumed the brush available. James spread more kindling, then added a few larger logs. The fire would last through most of the night. Cradling the bell in one hand, he crossed back to the skunk, and gingerly rolled him within the heavy quilts to keep him warm. Satisfied, he turned to the lantern atop its stand and extinguished the wick. The crimson glow from the hearth cast strange shadows across the room, but James paid them no mind. He cracked each window two finger widths, allowing a cool crisp breeze to circulate. With it he could almost feel his scent washing away. James double checked the quilts covering the skunk one last time before climbing the stairs and closing the door behind him. He returned the bell to his pack and hummed to himself as he walked through the Glen, letting the torches in the commons guide him along his way. The donkey's tail even swayed. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias !DSPAM:4e8f1298207941804284693! </body> </html>