<html> <body> Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars I: Disipicio (e) The great trunks of Glen Avery's towering trees stood dark sentinel in the night, blocking out the stars and moon above, leaving the ground in a blackness so deep only night-keen eyes could pierce it. Few lived upon the forest floor in the Glen; those preferring earth to wood, for the most part. Through these dark sentinels he walked, tracking his fingertips across rough wood and powerful roots that stood a man's height from the rich earth around the base of each tree. He came to a dark door inset between two roots at the crest of three steps and pushed it open without regard of whom might reside within. “James, the water!” a buxom woman, an opossum of perhaps advanced middle years, was laughing while she rolled a dough of pressed oats and flower on the age worn table near the door. She did not look up as the door opened, oblivious of a visitor standing there, watching. “I'll have naught for the dumplings if you let it boil away!” A familiar donkey ducked through the door, ignoring that someone stood in the threshold, his tall ears folded back as he tugged a towel around himself. Water coursed from his short gray pelt as he tried to keep the towel away from the hearth fire while drawing the cauldron out upon the arm from which it hung. “I'm sorry, Baerle, but the mistress Avery said it was nigh time I washed the dust out...” The door closed and the watcher moved on aimlessly. Rough stone walls stretched between the trees, freshly carved from the land. Wood and stone stood together, each occupying the same space upon the dark earth yet each without disturbing the sanctity of the others' place there. It was as if two places stood together, just slightly out of kilter with time, and shared the place for a moment. Another door was pushed open onto a churned field of battle, the blinding sun shining down upon the lone warrior who stood in its brilliant light. Lord Thomas Bryn Hassan stood victorious upon the field of battle, a flamberge twice as long as the powerful young lord stood tall held in both hands, but no vanquished foe lay before him. The field, churned, muddied, and littered with the shattered debris of battle, stood bare but for the young stallion in his polished blue-steel plate and mail. A dented helmet sat upon his head, a single curving steel horn standing from the proud brow. Casting about for another foe to fell Bryn found none and a roar came to his ears; a crowd of hundreds – nay, thousands – stood all about the field of battle while in a covered stand sat the Lord and Lady of Metamor clapping with warm pleasure at their son's uncontested victory. None took note of the door that stood open, unsupported but for a rough-hewn wooden frame, in the middle of the list looking out onto a night darkness of a forest glade framed by fresh laid stone walls. The night mist crept to the valence of the door but did not intrude as the door was slowly swept closed with a chuckle. What a sword! Such thoughts of grandeur, from such an accomplished warrior, seemed ill fitting. With a chuckle the wanderer wandered on. Coming at least to a familiar tree, its presence so profound that the walls were subsumed by its preeminence. The wanderer stopped at the door with fingers light resting upon it, and then pushed lightly. The room beyond was, like the tourney field, brightly lit in a myriad of colors. The stained glass windows were vague, not clearly formed while the one form within was sharply defined. The Lady Kimberly Matthias sat in a chair, her arms outstretched, open hands held palms up before her as if to cup something delicate. Above them a hand, fur as black as night and claws gleaming with a razor-edged sharpness, shimmered above her open palms. “Of two shall be made one. Two souls, awound and bound, together entwined separated only by the quickening of life.” A low, ghostly voice filled the sunlit room, but it was not Kimberly's gentle churr. Nor was it such a voice that she appeared to fear it, eagerly awaiting what the black-furred paw might gift her. “Blood and blood, from two bound one, in union without consecrated.” A stone, shimmering purple with a strange illumination, appeared in the grasp of that black hand. Crazed about its smooth, crystalline surface were lines of bright glistening blood. “Of the two, this one be made.” The voice continued as the wanderer stood in the doorway, unsure to be aghast or amazed, as a shimmering third form began to appear. The light of the glowing stone began to shimmer, and then pulse, as the shadowy form became a shape; strong of shoulder and broad of hip, with a long tail and an angular muzzle. The stone, held between one paw and another, assumed the place of the vague form's heart. “Take to your breast and hold dear, for from you to he a bind be made, two into one. Cut the binding and he is unmade.” The voice dropped to a hard warning as the hand faded and Kimberly gazed at the stone resting in her palms, its glow pulsing to the time of another's heart. The door closed, shutting out the light and plunging the stone corridor into the darkness of night once more. The glow of flickering torchlight defined the corridor that stretched away behind but no torches stood within the sconces on the wall. The door was fresh hewn, iron banded and built of stout, pale wood. A hand raised slowly, though the bearer of that hand had not moved from the last door to this, they were neither one alike. Slender fingers tipped with slim, sharp claws pressed against the door and, though the bolt was shot, it swept open. And then swept away, banished as if it had never been. The land was moon-lit and still, stars winking overhead uncontested by the least of lights upon the land. A ring of towering stones stood, ancient and worn, atop a mighty tor of even more ancient stone. In the center of that ring a long stone laid horizontal and worn smooth by countless years of use. Before it stood the Baron Charles Matthias, his leg in a splint though lacking a cane, his shadow long and draped down the side of the tor like a tapestry cast down. He gazed across at another figure; taller, darker, and altogether more foreboding. It was clad in a cloak of night-black feathers and, as its head came up, a black beak shone forth so dark that none even the moon's glimmering rays could cast upon it a shine. “Have you come?” the raven queen croaked flatly. “I have,” Charles intoned, penitent yet somehow eager to the point of fidgeting excitement. “I seek one who has passed beyond.” “Beyond the veil of night, beyond dreams, beyond my grasp,” the raven's haunting voice croaked as she gazed down at the small rat with calm yet intense regard; as a heron might a careless minnow. “But you know where he may be found!” Charles cries out. “I do.” The raven's regal head bobbed slowly, eyes dark without a patina of hue gleaming in expectation. “You ask that I seek to find him?” “To bring him back, mistress,” the rat intoned querulously. “I beg, please, bring him back to me, that I may know him one last time. To say... to say farewell.” The raven shook her head. “To bring him back from the Beyond place, from His grasp unto yours.” The feathery cloak that she wore lifted of its own accord, broad wings stretching to cast the slab of stone that lay between them in moon shadows. “A task of greatness, you seek to ask of me. The price of a soul is steep.” “A soul lost can be found, mistress. I seek it.” “The price of a soul is a soul in return.” She bowed her head, her voice a deathly corpse-croak of sinister potency. “You have one to offer, seeker of the lost?.” Steeling himself with a breath Charles straightened his stance and nodded. “I do.” The raven queen's wings snapped down, casting the light of the moon once more onto the slab, where a child lay in sleep. As her wings fell they settled about her shoulders, mantling about her rather than folding as a cloak once again. In her arms she held a babe of her own, so similar to the one that lay upon the stone that they might be brothers. “You surrender one soul to regain another that was lost?” Tears trailing from his eyes Charles stretched out his arms for the babe held in the raven's eerie, motherly embrace. “I do!” Slowly she held out the child and Charles eagerly grasped at him, drawing him to his breast in a crushing embrace as he wept. His own shadow seemed to stretch and envelop them both. The raven's gaze lowered to the child slumbering, peaceful and blissfully ignorant, upon the stone. Her hand reached down. “The bargain is struck.” Her voice croaked as her head turned slightly, cavern-black corvid eyes gleaming as they gazed not toward Charles wrapped in his shadow, but toward the one watching. She, and she alone of all who had been seen, saw the watcher as clearly as one might a person standing beside them. “The bargain is struck. The exchange is agreed.” The croak of her voice echoed as her fingers caressed the brow of the child. He vanished in a swirl of night-black mist. ---------- Charles Matthias jerked awake with a start, both hands flying up as he gazed at them in the wan glow of a shuttered lamp. He flexed and clenched his fingers. He had held him! He had given up one to take back another. His voice hitched in his throat as his hands dropped to his face and tears sprang from his eyes. Sixteen years ago... this day. Such a dreadful bargain he had made, that had cost him two sons. At his side Kimberly slept peacefully, undisturbed by the return of the knife wound pain of a horrible choice. Her hand was clasped around the pendant that she had been given not long before Charles had made that dreadful bargain. Lost. Both of them, lost. One beyond the pulse of life, in Eli's arms. The other... the other given an altogether more questionable fate, though he yet lived. Two sons, lost to him. Clutching his hands to his face in horror for his transgressions, Charles wept. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>