<html> <body> Inchoate Carillion, Inconstant Cuckold By Charles Matthias Charles drove his arms into the stone, the gray creeping up his arms and over his shoulders as he pushed deeper and deeper into the ledge. The wall of snow rushed toward him with the ferocity of a Sondesharan sandstorm. It raced down either side of the crevice, parting at the top of a ridge some distance above them, before flowing back together just in front of the rat. The torrent miraculously rushed past Baerle who seemed safe inside the crevice before pounding into the rat. Charles drove his face into the stone beneath him and shuddered as he felt the onslaught batter across his back, grasping and dragging him backward from the stone as it caught his pack and yanked. He pulled his tail in close as best he could, the battering searing at his stony flesh like a million ribbons dashing against him. He could feel the straps on his pack tearing and as the avalanche continued to pound into him, the resonance reverberating through his mind like the wild peal of bells, minute after minute of unremitting agony that made him scream within the confines of the mountainside, the pack finally broke free and was swept from his back and down into the valley below. Food, spare clothing, his bedding, and half of the pouches with the magical paste were all gone in a moment and lost forever. The only relief Charles felt as the snow continued to tear at his back was that his Sondeshike had turned to stone with him and was safe within his cloak now pushed into the rocky outcropping. Eventually, the avalanche subsided, and Charles, shaking and weary, lifted his head and gazed upward. The rush of snow had pushed him, even through the stone, down the mountainside a good twenty feet. With one trembling paw after another, he climbed back up the now bare rock, hoping and praying that Baerle had been kept safe in the crevice. When he reached the ledge, he saw that the avalanche had also blown him back the way they'd come, as the crevice was a good thirty paces away. He saw Baerle at the edge peering out over the precipice with a fearful look in her eye. The rat scrambled to his paws, still aching in his head, and tried to wave to her. “No!” a familiar voice shouted from up above. A gong sounded, cracking in the air like a fist smashing the earth. Charles crumpled to his knees, putting his paws to his ears, even as he searched the mountain for the source of the voice. Sliding down the stone on his hooves, with the cracked iron bell in his right hand and a short sword in his left, was his friend James the donkey. A wild look filled his eyes. He came to a stop as if unseen hands guided his fall only a few feet in front of Charles. He pointed the sword toward him and fumed with a high-pitched rage. “You! How can you still be alive? I hate you!” Charles blinked in dumbfounded horror as he climbed back to his feet and reached for his Sondeshike. “What are you talking about, James?” he asked as he gripped the compact Sondeshike in his right paw. “What's wrong with you?” James stepped forward, swinging the bell so that it pealed with a groan that made his stomach turn end over end. Charles gasped, fighting with all his strength to keep standing. The donkey's thick lips quivered and his nostrils stretched as if they were about to cast forth fiery bolts from within. “I have to kill you, Charles.” His voice, unrestrained yet almost apologetic in its severity. “I have to kill you so she can be mine. Nevermore. Nevermore will my soul find itself alone!” James drove forward with a feint from his sword. Charles, still not comprehending anything that was happening, extended the Sondeshike and batted the donkey's sword away, before taking a step back along the path to keep his distance. “You're talking madness, James. Who is she? Baerle? She's not mine at all.” White rimmed his eyes as he smacked the bell forward, another concussive tolling that made the rat's knees buckle for an instant. He poured his Sondecki strength into his legs and kept them still, but only just. “Liar!” James screamed before jumping forward and trying to smack him across the snout with the end of the bell. Charles ducked out of the way and swung his Sondeshike to intercept. The gong-like peal that echoed from the collision made Charles's mind blank. He wailed in agony as he fell backward, his entire body quivering and struggling against the darkness of sleep. He felt blood dribbling across his cheeks. Somehow he'd kept the Sondeshike in his paws but only just. As he lay on his back, he saw the donkey stand above him, just out of reach of the rat's legs ad tail. James's hands were wrapped so tightly about bell and blade that his knuckles were white even through his hide. “Liar! I've watched you two... I'ev seen the way you look at her. And I saw you hugging just now. Sharing that intimacy you can't have while others can see. But I see! I see! And it won't be anymore! Nevermore shall my soul find itself alone. Nevermore shall my soul find itself alone! Never more shall my soul find itself alone! Tolling! Tolling! Bells! The merry bosom swells with the ringing it impels!” The donkey's fevered voice had given way to a hysterical braying that echoed across the valley. The iron bell glistened and reflected his face as if it were silver. Charles breathed a single word as his eyes were lost in the endless curve of the bell. “Marzac...” He gasped and with anguish stared into the monstrous and twisted face of his friend. “James! This is Marzac doing this to you. Reject it like Kayla and Lindsey did! Remember what Habakkuk wrote to you! James please!” “Wretch!” James smacked the bell against rock and Charles felt it vibrate up through his body. Where he struck the mountain it cracked in a line that raced a few feet in every direction. Charles dare not turn himself to stone to escape. James stepped closer to the quivering rat, keeping the bell lifted and ready to sound, while the sword was held loosely but with clear purpose. One wrong move and his friend would skewer him as surely as he might a Lutin. “You already have a wife, Charles, and yet when I see a woman I desire, you steal her heart from me. When we go into battle together, it is you who steal all the acclaim; everyone recognizes your exploits; they are memorialized in song and ballad! Yours is the first name any thinks of when they think of Metamor's heroes!” “But what of me? Nothing! Oh, you all keep assuring me I'm a good fighter; but I see the poison in your words! Nevermore will I listen to it. Nevermore will I stand it! You will take thy paws from out my heart and take thy form from out my world!” He rushed forward and swung the bell down at the rat's head. Charles spun the Sondeshike into the donkey's arm beneath where he gripped the bell. He did not want to hit too hard for fear of severing his friend's arm; only enough force to break so he could subdue him until they could show him how Marzac had corrupted his mind. The bell was clearly the linchpin. But to his horror, even though his staff clearly struck the donkey just beneath his wrist, no bone shattered and no blood spilled. The Sondeshike merely stopped there as if it had struck an object even stronger than itself. Charles had never seen that happen before, and in his shock, he only had enough time to dive toward the mountain at his left to avoid the blow coming for his head. “It's Marzac!” he screamed through the gong like blast filling his mind. He wanted so desperately to shrink into his beastly form and scurry away where the donkey couldn't find him. There he could hide away from that carillon, that monstrous carillon that towered over them with such unremitting hostility and watchfulness. Only little animals were beneath its imperious gaze. He could be safe if he just lived like a normal rat. Charles pushed those thoughts away as he rolled right back into the donkey's legs, overbalancing him for one hopeful moment. James waved his sword arm in the air, before lifting his right leg and straddling atop of the rat, now once again on his back. He lifted high the bell, and with his face a rictus of loathing, moaned, “And who tolling, tolling, tolling, in that muffled monotone, feel a glory in so rolling on the human heart a stone. You stone. You... stone. You... you... get thee back into the tempest and the night! Nine will unlock. Nine will unlock.” James swung the bell down. Charles lifted his Sondeshike, and felt the blow lance down his arms and through his body, filling them a single note that echoed back and forth like a living thing brought forth, a flame now dancing at the end of a candlewick waiting for its brethren to join it. Charles had enough strength to keep his Sondeshike aloft to ward off the next two blows, but then even the might of the Sondeck failed in him. The bell crushed against his chest, arms, and face with the next four blows, bruising his flesh and breaking his bones. Blood rained down his snout and arms as the harmony swelled precipitously, seven voices now joined in discordant polyphony imbuing his body with an alien rage that made his eyes stream with tears. With what little was left of his strength and flesh, Charles whispered a plea to whatever remained of his friend, “It's Marzac, James. I forgive you...” And then, before the next blow could come, he heard a scream and saw through bleary eyes something leap onto the donkey's back. ---------- James could feel the will of the carillon alive in him in a way that no mere words could convey. Nine rings, nine tones filling the rat and it would be over. His body would burst asunder from the energy filling him, and the carillon would itself be manifested beyond the boundaries of the cracked iron bell through which it acted. There would be nothing it couldn't give to him in recompense after. Before he could convey the eighth tone, the eighth bell of that mighty Marzac carillon, something landed on his back and grasped him all over with arms, legs and tail. James screamed his rage and toppled backward against the rock, trying to swing the bell back to brain whoever it was that grasped him, his eyes so filled with the rat's blood that he couldn't resolve the screaming and clawing image that danced from one eye to the other. But try as he might, he could not connect the bell to flesh. James took several more steps back along the narrow ledge as the claws grasped his right arm, pinning the bell as far from him as it could reach. James snarled, flat teeth grinding together, and he spun on his hooves in a tight circle, flinging out his arm, and the creature grasping his back. To his surprise, it was Baerle. The opossum landed in a heap before him, limbs a scatter but gathering beneath her to strike again. Trash of all trash! How can a lady don it? Tolling! James shook his head, staring in horror at the fear in her eyes. He couldn't strike at her. Habakkuk had even assured him of that in his own strange way. “No!” James said, holding out his sword and warding her back, even as he drew the bell closer. “Stay back, Baerle! I'm not going to hurt you. I love you!” “You aren't James!” Baerle cried, as she drew her blades and took a step closer. “James would never hurt his friends!” Trash of all trash! Tolling! Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night! I feel ye now – I feel ye in your strength! “Baerle,” James shrieked. “Get back! I'm not going to hurt you!” Yet the ear it fully knows. Yet the ear distinctly tells. James glared at the bell and shouted. “No! You're wrong!” “James, destroy it! It's evil!” Baerle gasped as she brandished her daggers and feinted toward him. They are ghouls! “No!” James shouted in anguish as his eyes were filled with a monstrous reflection from the iron bell, his own face turned into a beast as vile as anything that had attacked them in the swamps. Marzac. This was Marzac in his hands and Marzac with which he'd struck Berchem, Angus, Charles, and very nearly Baerle herself. Bells! Bells! James screamed in horror as he fell back against the stone, trying to keep the iron bell still as much as he could. Two more strikes against the rat and whatever evil had sought to climb out of Lindsey's pouch, and whatever evil had sought to consume Rickkter's body would have been set free through the blossoming of Charles's flesh like a rose unfolding in Spring. He felt the weight of the carillon above him, bearing down like a furnace, sliding along metal gears as it lowered to crush him into a smear of pulp and ichor against a featureless slab, a sacrificial altar that consumed its victims with pitiless hunger. They would do to him exactly what they had once done to Zagrosek and with equal callousness. James turned the bell in his hand, slowly as his arm trembled and fought with him. He turned it until the crack faced him, the clapper within stirring and lifting of its own accord. “Go back to Hell and stay there! Forevermore!” He drove the point of his sword into the crack and yanked down on the haft. The iron shattered with a concussion that knocked him back against the path, his upper body tipping over the edge of the precipice. The sword and bell were blown from his hands, and he grasped at the ledge as he began to topple over into the waiting abyss. A pair of paws grasped his legs and pulled him back. Snow-covered tree tops wavered before him, as well as a slope of rock and snow that had pounded past moments before. But the paws pulled him away from that death, until he could get a grip on the stone and draw himself back onto the ledge and to safety. With her paws still grasped around his shins, Baerle stared at him in wonder and hope, her face a mix of emotions, but so fine and beautiful for all of that. “James, is it you?” James gasped and cried. “Oh, Baerle, it's me! It's me!” He grabbed onto her shoulders and held her for a moment, before pushing himself to his hooves. “Charles!” He ran back across the ledge to where the rat lay bleeding and groaning. “Charles, are you all right?” He knelt at the rat's side, noting the blood coming from his gums and ears, as well as a little spattering his fur-lined cloak and the Sondeshike at his side. Charles blinked and stared up at him with admiration. And through his bruised and broken chest, halting and weak, he said “Never better... now that... the ringing... is gone.” ---------- She had perhaps a mile left before she reached the mountain. Jessica wasn't sure if anyone could survive such an avalanche, but something had survived. She could see flares of light, a strange suggestion of a shape forming above the mountain itself, one limned with shade, curving wide enough to encompass the entire mount. A bell. A bell so massive that one ring from it would flatten the entire valley. And then, just as its definition seemed so real and true, a black plume like an alchemist's flame rose up from the northwestern flank of the mountain, piercing that image and scattering it as if it had never been. Jessica squawked in horror, wondering and dreading what it is she'd just seen. Her wings sore, she taxed them even more, diving toward the flank of the mountain. ---------- Charles hurt all over and even the few words he'd managed had left him breathless. The harmony of the bells was no longer in him, but the bruising he'd suffered on his face, arms, and in his chest made it impossible for him to even sit up. His incisors weren't broken, but from the lancing pain that riddled his face, he was afraid that his jaws might be. He knew at least three of his ribs had cracked when the bell had struck his chest, but those were easy to heal in comparison. James, at hearing the rat's words, chuckled mirthlessly for a moment, and then he collapsed against the rock and his entire body began to shake as he wept. Baerle, nestled beside the rat, glanced back at the donkey, and then to Charles. The rat lifted his right arm which didn't hurt as much as his left and waved toward his friend. Baerle frowned, looked over his wounds, then sighed and nodded. Baerle crept over to James's side and rested her paws on his shoulders. “Are you okay?” James sobbed, casting a glance at the broken remnants of the bell still wrapped about his sword. “I... I would never hurt you. I'm so sorry.” “I know. Charles knows too.” Baerle wrapped one arm around the donkey's shoulders and held him gently. “We have to... bandage him.” James shuddered and began to nod. “Aye.” As the two of them came forward, another voice sounded from behind. “What in all the hells is going on? James? Charles? Baerle?” “Angus!” Baerle cried with relief. “The bell... it's destroyed. Help us. Charles is badly injured.” The badger scrambled in next to Charles and began to gently poke him with his claws. “Ow!” Charles said at nearly every poke. “What happened here?” Angus asked as he felt around the rat's face. Charles winced visibly and he could feel the badger's thumbs rubbing against the break in his lower jaw like twin daggers stabbing in his flesh. “Your jaw's broken. Give me a moment and I'll set it for you. It's going to hurt like hell.” If he dared make his tongue work Charles would have offered the badger a sarcastic rejoinder for his brilliance. “I did this,” James said slowly, eyes lowered and his hands clasping and unclasping. “Marzac did this through me. I'm... I'm so sorry! I should have known. I should have...” tears streamed from his eyes again and he sat back down on the ledge, tail pressed beneath him and hooves clopping together through the ice shoes. “I nearly killed you all. I'm so... so sorry.” Baerle knelt at his side and wrapped one arm about his back again. She cast a quick glance at Angus. “Can you see to Charles?” The badger rubbed his paws together and nodded. “Of course.” He braced his paws on either side of the rat's jaws and grunted. “Hold onto something.” Charles closed his eyes and dug his paws into the stone beneath him. The pain that exploded a moment later in his mind made his legs and tail kick, but it was a sweet agony compared to what the bells had done to him. ---------- As soon as Jessica rounded the northwestern flank of the mountain her heart filled with relief. Though the avalanche had cleared the entire face of snow, along a small ledge the four Glenners all were all there, and no more sign of taint existed. James reclined in a heap, head between his arms resting on his knees, while the opossum Baerle was at his side speaking soft words. Charles was propped up against a satchel, while Angus wrapped his chest, arms, and even his face in bandages. James lifted his head as she landed on the ledge and swelled to her normal size. “Jessica! Oh Jessica, it was Marzac. It came for me, and I nearly gave in to it! You have to help Charles!” Jessica turned between them and folded her wings behind her back. “What happened?” “I destroyed the bell,” James said, gesturing to the cracked remains of an iron bell. It was split all the way to the haft, chunks of metal broken free along the bore. Jessica couldn't see any traces of magical energy left within it, but just staring at the ruined bell made her feathers tremble and her talons scrape. How could an evil defeated still frighten so? “And Charles?” Jessica turned toward the rat who met her gaze with bleary eyes. “I struck him with the bell. I beat him with it,” James shuddered and lowered his head back into his arms. Baerle rubbed his arm with one paw, her other draping along his back. “If you can heal him,” Angus said, “please do. His jaw was broken and there's only so much I can do about that. A few of his ribs too. We've got a hard climb ahead of us if we're going to get back to Glen Avery.” Jessica crouched next to the rat who looked up at her through the bandages wrapped about his snout with a hopeful expression. While healing magic was not what she had trained in under Wessex, their time traveling together last year had taught her many new things and mending broken bones and soothing bruises was one of them. How much she owed in that to Abafouq, Guernef, or even Qan-af-årael she could not say, but to each she offered a silent word of thanksgiving as she felt with her feathers around the rat's jaws. Her black feathers glowed faint blue as she whispered the words of power so softly that her beak didn't even move. The rupture in the bones began to mend with each syllable. And she could see the rat's eyes relax more and more as the power spread through his snout. By the time she had finished healing the break in his jaws, Jessica felt anew the weariness in her body that she had kept at bay these last few days. She briefly considered tapping into her reservoir, but decided against it. These were healing spells after all; there was no need to call on more energy than was required. Jessica turned her attention to the rat's ribs, and then to either of his arms. When he was finished, exhausted, she almost collapsed onto her tail feathers with a squawk. “That's as much as I can do.” “Can I take the bandages off?” Angus asked as Charles's jaws squirmed beneath the bindings keeping them shut and in place. “For now. The bones are still weak so he'll need to keep them supported for at least a week.” Charles didn't wait for the badger. As soon as he had the hawk's permission he tore the bandages around his face off and slowly worked his jaws back and forth. “Oh, thank you! The pain is still there, but, at least I can move my jaw again. What are you doing here, Jessica?” “Burris asked me to help him figure out what was wrong with Berchem. Together we were able to see that it was the magic of Marzac, and when I mentioned a bell, they knew it had to be James. That was this morning. I've been flying here ever since. What happened to you all? How was it destroyed?” “It wanted me to hurt Baerle,” James murmured from his crouch. “I was okay with killing you and nearly killing Berchem, but I couldn't hurt her. I guess you know what I did to him...” “Berchem?” Jessica asked. He nodded but didn't look up. “Aye, we know. But why did you do that?” He ground his teeth together and then sighed. “Because of what he said about Baerle.” He managed to raise his head and turned both of his eyes toward the opossum. “I hated him for it. But I couldn't kill yet because then I wouldn't have had a chance to kill Charles. Oh.... I'm so sorry.” “I forgive you, James. Kayla didn't really want to hurt us either when she was under Marzac's power. It's no different now. “ Charles pushed himself up against the pack so that he was sitting up properly, long tail stretched out between his legs. “Everyone will understand when we get back.” “And Berchem will too,” Baerle assured him with a firm grip on his shoulder. “I'll make sure of that.” The donkey snorted and lowered his head back down. “I don't deserve friends like you.” “Nobody deserves a friend like me,” Angus retorted while thumping his paw on his chest. They all managed weak smiles at that, even James. “So what now?” “We need to find a place to rest for the night. I suggest gong back the way we came.” Angus glanced across the mountain path and then to his friends. “Two good days of climbing should bring us back to the Gateway.” He glanced at Jessica, “Unless you can give us all wings or something.” “Not yet,” she replied. “but I will fly back and let Lord Avery know where to meet you. I have to go back and make sure Berchem has recovered now that the bell is destroyed.” Her golden eyes turned to the cracked ruin of metal and she shuddered. “And I have to do something about that.” Charles lifted one arm. “I can make something out of stone here. After what just happened I think the mountain will be very glad to donate if it gets that thing off its flanks.” Jessica nodded and then forced herself back on her talons. She walked over to where James crouched. The opossum had not left his side once, though her snout was rife with conflicting emotions. Jessica wasn't sure how much Baerle cared for the donkey, but it was clear that she had some feelings for him, even if she herself wasn't sure what they were. Jessica bent low and spread one wing to rest on the donkeys other shoulder. “James. Marzac made you do terrible things. But you are a good man. One of the best I've ever known, and one I'm honored to know and call friend. Thank you.” James lifted his head and blinked. “For what?” “For destroying the evil all by yourself. Lindsey and Kayla couldn't do it. But you did.” She pushed her wing claws between his arms until they pressed against his chest. “There's more in here than you give yourself credit for.” His lips quivered threatening a smile, before he managed to say, “Thank you, Jessica.” She patted him on the side with her wing and offered a silent prayer that her dear friend would find the peace in his heart that he needed. Her eyes briefly alighted on the ruin of the bell, then she turned back to Charles who had managed to roll onto his haunches. “Are you ready to fashion stone? I will do what I can to strengthen it with magic.” “I'm already working on it,” the rat replied. Beneath his hands the ledge slowly disgorged a solid block of granite. Jessica could only gape in wonder. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias !DSPAM:4e9c9d05157045315134984! </body> </html>