<html> <body> It has been some time since I last posted a story here and since Ryx and I are far enough along on this one, I thought it finally the time to share it with you all. This story does make some assumptions about future details of Metamor Keep and the world stage that I hope do not interfere with anything anyone else has in mind. We tried to keep the details to a minimum but there are just some things we felt made too much sense not to state. Note, that this story begins in 724 CR, a full sixteen years later than the current story-lines. The story is not complete but we hope to finish it this year. I will be posting each Part (Pars) every couple of months; this will hopefully give us enough lead time to finish up the rest of it. Please do let us know what you think! Note, I never get copies of my own mail, so if the story is mangled by email, please let me know! --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars I: Disipicio (a) Wednesday, May 12, 724 CR The cool of the morning mist had burned off as the sun crept above the mountaintops, taking with it the best chance the hunters had of finding their quarry out from cover. One of Wolfram’s patrols had spotted the white hart north of Glen Avery a week before and identified its particular track by the short half of a single cloven hoof. Since then scouts had tried to track it, and spied it twice more, but the beast was elusive and hard to spot despite being as white as fresh fallen snow. Those same scouts and a retinue of beaters, huntsmen, servants, and guards in soft leather – which was more silent, and more comfortable, than their usual scale – hung back with the quiet obsequious ways of servants. A larger retinue of house servants waited back at the Glen proper to receive the victorious hunters when they returned with their prize. But an elusive prize it was proving to be. Yet it was a hunt, out and away from the noise and crowds of daily court life, so it offered the two hunters a prize respite that was almost as valuable as the quarry they sought. It was the only time the two could really enjoy each others' company more or less alone, discounting the hovering retainers a hundred lengths back at the edge of the wood. The hunters sat astride tall, sleek chargers and gazed down the far side of the hill upon which the hart had last been spotted and regretted their ill luck at the fading mist. One of the pair was a curious sight; a tall, broad shouldered horse astride a horse, dressed in a snow white doublet with modest lace brocade trimmed in silver unadorned save for the rearing blue stallion on his breast. The other was shorter, more slender, and most certainly not a horse-astride-a-horse; he was a rat. He was likewise dressed in as fine a cut of tailor-craft as one might dare risk out a-hunt; a doublet of pale sky blue with even more lace and silver trim. The rat’s raiment was by no means gaudy, but beside the white of his companion he stood out like a sapphire propped beside a snow sculpture. The stallion in white turned his head to regard his smaller companion with a moue of displeasure and a rueful whinnying laugh, “It looks like the only thing we’re going to find today are rabbits. More rabbits!” He shook his regal head with a sigh, “As much as you enjoy a brace of coneys, three days of such fare is sitting heavy on my gut.” He turned his gaze once more toward the tree line a few score lengths down the gentle slope. “To the trees, Argamont.” He held no reins; only a long finely crafted bow in one hand. Strapped to his thigh was an ornate quiver of supple white leather with white-fletched arrows. His mount ambled forward leisurely and the rat’s matched pace. “What say we quit this farcical endeavor and make north to Hareford to see how old Sir Dupré is coming along with his wall?” The slim rat let a slight crease draw at the corners of his long snout, whiskers twitching amiably and ears of pale cream flicked. “The day is hardly begun.” He smiled more warmly toward his childhood friend and offered a slight shrug, reserved as was his manner. Unlike the other he held reins in his rodentine paw lightly but let the horse have its head to walk along beside the strawberry roan charger beneath the white clad nobleman. “I fear we would cause your father unnecessary anxiety.” The stallion snorted and smiled with his supple equine lips. Unusually long ears for one of his breed danced above his youthful brow, not detracting from his youthful handsomeness but rather enhancing it. A brash mane tied in black braids flowed between those ears and bounced along the side of his thick neck. He was not quite as regal as the sable-brown stallion lord that was his sire, nor as rugged as the assingh lady that was his dam. Their bloodlines had blended to create the stocky, stubborn, and garrulous young noble who lead the hunting party. He had inherited his sire’s dark coloration, and his mother’s ears and solid lines in a form that was considered quite handsome – for a horse. “And my mother?” he challenged humorously of his smaller companion, thick lips spread to reveal flat teeth. “She would encourage the ride.” The rat nodded with a smile of his own, reaching out to lift a branch aside as their mounts ambled into the shade of the forest verge. Behind them they heard their retinue following with as much silence as two score men could – which was rather little. The dappled forest light glinted from a medallion that dangled about the rat’s neck; the form a crescent moon worked in filigreed silver. The rat was lithe where his equine companion was solid and was a good head shorter though his lanky frame gave the impression of greater stature. Deep blue eyes peered through the forest as scalloped ears turned to listen to the scrapping and rustling of branches. “And then tut your father for not going, himself.” “And my sisters and little brother with them!” the young horse lord brayed with a deep-throated laugh that hitched through the octaves rather than rolled; a legacy of his dam as well the throat of a youth in the transition to manhood. His lush tail draped off one side of his mount’s back, resting in a notch specially created in his saddle for the sole purpose of allowing one with a tail to sit. The rat’s tail, long and slender and all but furless, rested through the back of his own saddle similarly, but flitted from one side to the other in humor. “And your father, Charlie? What would he have to say about such a side trip?” Charlie shrugged, his long whiskers twitching in the sort of good humor he always felt around his childhood friend. “Probably the same as both your father and mother. I’m just not sure in which order he would say it!” His laugh was a sharp staccato of perfect pitches like someone brushing their fingers over the strings of a harp, unlike the raucous bray of the young stallion. “But if we wish to end the hunt we should at least disposition our men. We wouldn’t want someone sneaking off and capturing the hart before us, now would we?” Their horses drew closer together as they navigated through the thick trunks of ancient trees, making both riders lean forward in their saddles to duck a thick, low hanging limb. “Damn the hart!” the stallion snorted with a laugh and an upward glance, one hand reflexively rising to trace the sign of the yew across his breast, finishing with a light tap upon his broad brow. “We’ve been crashing about over hill and dale here for three days with nary a sign of aught but rabbits and more rabbits!” “And the innkeeper's son.” The rat grinned with a show of powerful incisors, whiskers lifting and ears pricking forward in jest. “Well, yes, and one luckless innkeeper's son.” “Whom you tried to fletch, Bryn!” With a snort Bryn swung out an arm to rap his companion lightly on his upper arm, “That fool buck should know better than run around on four hooves when he knows we’re out a-hunting!” He shook his head and batted aside a branch of budding green. “He should wear a proper sash so we know he’s no mere beast of the wood!” “That buck,” quipped a chattering, indignant voice from the trees above them, “is my friend!” The two riders stopped and gaped upward, as did the lordling’s mount with a surprised snort. The rat’s mount merely dropped her head to crop the sparse undergrowth. From out of the leafy boughs that smelled of sweet spring blossoms dangled a gray-furred squirrel in a loose green tunic and matching breeches, a simple bow of slender yew slung close across his back. “Milords.” The squirrel added a moment later in belated observance of their rank. “He was merely out for a morning stroll when your arrow sprang from a tree not an ell from his nose.” Bryn, ears upright and eyes wide, scowled at the squirrel hanging up-side-down from the branches overhead, “Lucky him Charlie saw that bangle on his antlers and whacked my bow, else my aim would have been true.” The rat, Charlie, tilted his head slightly at the awkward view of their visitor’s face peering down at them. “Fallon! Stop scurrying about in the trees and learn to ride a horse!” “Why?” quipped the squirrel with a bright, churring laugh. “This is more fun!” The youngest son of Baron Avery, lord of the Glen that held the family name, turned his hands loose from the branches and he hung full length downward to offer them a profound bow – wrong wise round. Charlie clucked his tongue against the roof of his muzzle and sighed, but could not help but grin at the squirrel’s antics. Beside him Charlie could see Bryn’s lips twitching with a suppressed grin of his own as the squirrel, five years the rat's junior, exemplified his race’s inability to sit, stand, or even hang head-down from a tree with any semblance of stillness. “You aren’t thinking of abandoning your hunt, are you?” “Great Eli, no!” Bryn exclaimed, “We’d have to return to the Keep if we did that!” The equine lordling suddenly realized his language and hastily sketched the sign of the yew upon his breast and brow again. “You know,” Charlie remarked with a laconic smile, “If you were Lothanasi you wouldn’t have to keep doing that. The Pantheon doesn’t hold much to how their names are used.” Bryn cast him a sidelong glance, “If I were Lothanasi I’d have to learn ten times as many symbols!” the stallion shot back with a scowl at his friend’s good-natured needling. Charlie could see a wrinkle of tension upon his friend’s brow that he long recognized. There were certain things his friend did not like being teased about and following his mother’s Faith was one of them. Charlie hoped that, with a few more years behind him, the blossoming of his true manhood would turn his friend’s irritation into the amusement of an old joke. But, in the end, the young stallion’s ire lasted only a moment. His dark eyes returned to the squirrel dangling above them shaking the new budded maple leaves with each twitch of his lush gray tail. “We’re not abandoning the hunt.” He snorted, “We are taking a short excursion to relieve ourselves after three days of fruitless wandering about the wood! If I did not know better I would say one of you Glenners took the white hart already and are making pouches out of its beautiful hide while we speak!” Fallon raised one hand to his breast and feigned exaggerated innocence. A trilling laugh burbled in his throat as he spoke. “Would we ever do such a thing to you, milords? Never! Why such a hide would look so much better stretched out in front of the hearth at Lars’ alehouse!” “That hide will be on my wall, tree rat!” Charlie' nose twitched at the pejorative, but he had heard far worse when accompanying his father on their annual summer voyage to the southern city that bore their family name. Sailors and tradesman, be they of Eli or one of the varied Pantheonic gods, swore without rancor and laughed off their affront to the gods. It was always strange to journey beyond Metamor Valley. They had plenty of humans here in the borders of Metamor, but outside in the larger world it always felt so plain seeing nothing but them! Where were the walking, talking martens, foxes, horses, raccoons, rats, alligators, hawks, dragons, and countless other species that he was so accustomed to seeing from the time of his youth? He enjoyed those journeys into the southern kingdoms and savored the intrigue that necessarily accompanied them, but it was a much greater relief to return home where he could walk freely without drawing the stares of shock and incredulity that his mere existence caused. It felt liberating to sit astride his horse beside his friend without fear of a bold trophy seeker or assassin or merely the misguided fear of a commoner seeking to slide cold steel between his ribs for being nothing more than what he was; a rat. Still, he would have to chide the heir to the Duchy of Metamor over his insult later. Something in the squirrel’s manner set the hair of his nape atwitch. Under his father’s tutelage, and after several years accompanying him and using their shared talents, he had gained a healthy sense of when things were not sanguine. Fallon was an eleven year old squirrel and thus very excitable and, while his alert black eyes rarely stayed in one place very long, they were not often accustomed to avoiding direct eye contact. He was itching to say something, Charlie sensed, and he also sensed that it was probably unpleasant news. Such as the revelation that a hunter, unknowing of the young heir’s hunt, had scored a white trophy for his homestead. “Enough boasting about a hart none of us have seen let alone put fletching to.” Charlie said at length, reaching across to rest his claw-tipped fingers against his larger, though slightly younger, companion's powerful arm in a calming gesture. “You sought us out here to do more than taunt us and leave our necks sore from gawping up at you. Have you aught to say, Fallon? A message, perhaps?” The squirrel lithely twisted himself about, reaching up to grasp the branch that only his strong foot-paws had been grasping, to right himself. He swung as easily from one branch to the next as Charlie might descend a flight of stairs until he was not quite so awkwardly above them. His tail dangled, the entire length lashing from side to side as he bobbed his head. “A rider came from the Narrows to the Glen not an hour past, to see my father, Brian.” He cast his eyes down to the branch and his sharp claws gouged narrow furrows in the spring softened bark. “The Baron… he…” Charlie felt his heart stumble within his breast, an icy lance of dread racing up his spine and setting his short fur alift. Beside him Bryn became still, his tall ears pinning forward at the young squirrel, all irritation fled in the span of a breath. “Say on, Fallon. What of him?” Bryn prompted gently, his voice a much lower octave than he was wont to use around friends. His court voice, as he called it; calm and low and commanding without being demanding. “There was some accident,” Fallon continued, unconsciously brushing his brow with the prominent knuckles of one dexterous hand, his chittering voice dropping to a barely understandable churr, “An accident, the rider told my father. The Baron… had an accident.” Charlie felt the muscles of his jaw twitch, his incisors grinding together for a moment before he took a careful breath, “What happened to my sire?” Fallon swallowed and shook his head, closing his eyes and hunching down penitently, “I heard the rider say… say… I’m sorry, milord!” He lifted his gaze beseechingly, tail going utterly still, “The rider said that the Baron Matthias was crushed beneath a boulder!” Charlie felt his jaw gape and his eyes widen in shock. Beside him Bryn twisted in his saddle, “Markham!” he bellowed so loudly it made Charlie’ ears flatten back in reflex. Bryn turned his attention back to the fearful squirrel, “Then why didn’t you say so in the first place?” he snorted with restrained anger as he leveled a lordly glare at the young squirrel. “Charlie?” The rat took an unsteady breath and sat taller in his saddle. “To the Narrows.” He nodded uneasily, his earlier good humor blown away as completely as the morning mist. “Thank you, Fallon, Bryn.” A human man dressed in the livery of House Hassan jogged up to stand at the shoulder of Bryn’s horse. “Markham, have the men retire to Glen Avery. Lord Sutt and I are riding to the Narrows with all possible haste and will return,” he glanced aside at his slender friend, “We shall return when we return. Have a rider take word to the Duke.” His voice was smooth and deep, in full command. “Tell my men-at-arms to catch up as they can.” The man bobbed his head and stepped back, “As you wish, your grace.” With a crisp turn he jogged back the way he had come. Bryn looked down at the head of his mount which was turned slightly to gaze back at him with one deep brown eye. “Argamont, are you good for haste?” The horse seemed to understand perfectly, bobbing his head once in affirmation. Charlie set his heels to the ribs of his mare, not nearly so intelligent as the young Duke’s own charger, and tugged the reins to bring her head toward the south. The horse lord offered him a reassuring smile before his mount set his own course, as familiar with every hill and valley of Metamor as any born to the land. Fallon scampered into the treetops and was lost to sight as their retinue, still in the meadow atop the hill, began to decamp. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>