<html> <body> Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars I: Disipicio (h) The flame led to calm, the calm to its center, and in the center was focus. In twilight the wander wandered, the curious imagines, and the seeker sought, while the world around passed unknowing. Where before the wanderer merely wandered without aim or goal, to espy what might be imagined behind the closed eyes of the unguarded, he now sought a path through the dim half-light that stood between awareness and imagination. His steps followed a dark path through the forest, the slender alders and birch before him shifted their appearance to disappear behind him as oak and maple. Vaults of branches lined his path, each of them coming to an arch and framing a door. Some of the doors were half open, suggesting rooms or lands beyond while others were closed and dark. Words and voices echoed from those portals but he did not listen to them for none spoke to him of that which he sought. None of them were his quarry and thus none of them were worthy of his attention. Vagaries of fog and flashes of uncertain light overhead gave a suggestion of sky though there was no clear indication of either stars or of clouds, neither sun nor moon. It was as if the ceiling were a cathedral vault so high above that the eye was incapable of perceiving it within the gloom. Dirt, stone, and mire gathered around his feet, while a wind he could not feel stirred the branches, clattering together in a dry staccato. Leaves danced and the doorways thrummed, skipping past him as if he were riding horseback and not walking. Occasionally he would pause, listening, as a whisper plucked at his ear, only to move on when the name faded into other thoughts that could not further pique his interest. Upon his journey he came upon a vast and towering wagon, mighty steeds at its yokes, piled high with a plethora of rare and expensive goods. Two rats, one white with bright red eyes and an odd pale, piebald gold mark across his shoulders that seemed more burden than blotch, while the other was hooded in black and white, sat upon the buckboard, seeming all too small for both wagon and drays. “I don't care what he says, I'll not be raising my prices, nor my rates of trade, simply because he lacks a few goods that we can supply,” the pale rat said to his partner. “He is a good man, and he's a rat beside.” “Aye, yah, but we be merchants!” The black-and-white admonished stubbornly. “'E's got a fair point. Yer cuttin' our profits nigh thin as it be! That's no what we do!” “What we do is treat fairly with him, it's pretty simple. He's extended us every courtesy, and helped me establish...” “He's promised yer girl t' 'is son, that be tha', innit?” the other rat groused, crossing his arms and giving his paler companion a glare. “So now ye be gone all soft inna heart, in't tha' it?” “He is, and always has been, a fine friend. And he's fair short on coin, and we've stretched his wallet pretty thin. There are others from whom we can recoup any losses. And other ways to bring more business...” With a shrug the wanderer continued on, unobserved by the two rats or the powerful horses that plodded along. Even those two conversed, but it held nothing for the wanderer so he continued on without discerning what might interest horses. For a time the doorways faded, trees becoming walls of stone and then naught but naked rock untouched by the tools of men. The wanderer continued down the path, his ears twitching as he listened. It was not so much the name that he sought, but the voice that would utter it. That would call to him, draw him to the portal he sought. After some span of time that could not be measured the unhewn walls of stone began to change, inset portals leading to simple entries barred by nothing more than woven vines. In time the granite defile became a boulevard of cut and fitted blocks with homes of stone and wood standing upon either side. Signboards waved above door of iron banded wood. Words of comfort, words of hope, words of fear, words of wonder, words that had no meaning whatsoever drifted through the doors in the wood and stone. The wanderer heard them all, pausing only a moment to gauge each before moving on. The path now climbed by stone steps, the trees dwindling as if they were seen only at a distance, and yet the doors persisted. It was one of those doors that the wander found himself drawn to by a familiar voice. It was not the speaker that he sought, but upon their tongue was the name he listened for, and used with such insistence that he could not ignore it. The name of his quarry resounded in his ears as he stepped through that near door. Beyond was a small stone room with washbasin, and a rack of clothing hanging to dry, all of them fine cut of modestly expensive material. Candles lit the room beyond, their wax forming tendrils to the floor and pools about them. Golden afternoon light shone through a single narrow window and cast a splash of light, nearly blinding to eyes accustomed to candles trying to banish the gloom elsewhere in the washroom, or the dim half-light of the path which the wanderer traveled. A young mole woman dressed in the garb of a common servant was beseeching another figure cloaked in finery and shadowed with the silhouette of a rat. By the mark upon his face alone the seeker knew that it was the one he sought, but not quite truly him, for there were odd distortions in the face and body that made him seem stockier and swarthier than he should be, altogether heroic in poise and bearing. A warm smile drew at the visage of the rat as he strode down the stone steps toward the washerwoman, his hands straying to the sash which held together the robe he wore. With a snort of rueful laughter the wanderer turned back and resumed his trek along the path. The two became a city, towering buildings old and established, and at the apex of the boulevard a mighty fort stood, though no guards were posted at the gate. Though the gate was closed and barred the wanderer passed through. He did not need to listen when he came to a door set in the midst of the mountainside. The arch frame was carved from the granite, and about its surface an ivy grew, flowering with bright purple blossoms. The ivy took root at the base of the door, stretching on either side as if protecting the door. The wanderer paused a moment to consider the plant but knew that it would not harm him. With a determined narrowing of his eyes he stepped through. He emerged from the darkened mountainside at a seaside port staring up the gangplank of a large cog. Human men, sweaty and strong, carried supplies up to the ship, all of them casting wary glances at the end of the stone pier but not one toward him though they walked past him within a whisker's reach. At its prow were the artfully painted words “Venture Swift”, and a leaping dolphin graced its bow. The wanderer let his eyes descend from the bow to the end of the stone wharf where the waves crested and splashed , casting a brilliant sheen across each stone and crevice and there found his quarry. The black scar over his right eye was unmistakable, and where in the servant's dream he had been distorted into some idealistic impression, here he was as clear as memory served. Part of him was dressed in the blue finery worthy of his rank, while the rest of him seemed to be garbed in the common uniform of a scout for Metamor. He stood talking with a bright red-haired youth and a young dragon with vermillion-tipped gray scales. Between them crouched a creature that appeared to be both a wolf and a man, caught somewhere between either extreme, but not in the way of one touched by Metamor's curse still in transition. It looked as if the poor beast was both fully a wolf and fully a man at the same time, and could not make up its mind which it would be but wanting to be neither. Confused at what he was seeing, the wanderer stepped closer. Everything was so strangely clear, as if it were somehow familiar yet he could not recall the participants. The red-haired man smiled and patted the scar-faced rat on the shoulder. “We will follow along on your journey. It will be bad enough for the crew without us three on board.” “Of course,” the rat said with a nod. Despite the brilliant sunshine none of them seemed to cast shadows. “I know you can keep an eye on us with ease from the skies. And if we need to send you a message one of the birds will help.” “They will. They are as eager for this journey as we are!” The red-haired man said with a smile. “And your family?” The wanderer, unseen by the figures, stepped closer. “My family will be fine.” The fine, and yet simply, dressed rat waved a hand reassuringly toward man and dragon. A third shape circled above, slowly in wide arcs, but it was no dragon. It's body was too foreshortened and broad, but too long to be a bird's despite the broad fan of its tail. “I am here to protect them, as will be Garigan and our other friends. Besides, should any threat arise I daresay it will unlike reach us before dragon fire convinces it to take that threat elsewhere. And... a journey like this will be good for them all.” The wanderer felt frustration blossom in his heart. This was not what he had come to see. His tongue twisted and words spilled unbidden. “What of the child?” The voice was his own and it carried across the expanse of the wharf and over the sounds of the vessel's provisioning, rocking in its quay, and the chorus of seagulls, but none of the speakers seemed to hear. “What of the child left upon the stone?” He circled around the speakers, casting about, wondering why he was here, now, seeing this. “What of the deal?” “What of the deal?” asked a calm voice as another speaker wandered up to the crowd. One arm was draped over the shoulders of a petite, slender red fox dressed in a simple servant's gown of pale gray. In her arms was a child, a rat, with only a year of age, her cheeks still plump and dimpled with glee as her tiny fingers clutched at the finger the vixen used to tease her whiskers. The speaker, a tall marten, smiled at rat and dragon and red-haired man regally. In his free arm he, too, held a young rat of similar age but this one was asleep, his face slack in pleasant repose. Beside him stood a feminine rat with two babes in her arms, clearly the mother of the matching quartet. “I believe it was a single merchant per soul per week at sea?” The finale dressed marten's brows were raised when he looked to the scar-faced rat. But the wanderer's eyes were drawn to the babes, their features sharp and crisp and so very, very present he spared not a glance for the nobleman nor vixen. The male rat beamed a bright smile, one paw resting on the shoulder of the half-man half-wolf crouched at his side. “Ahh, there you are, and they. I certainly hope the captain is not demanding a coin for each of the wee ones similarly?” A shadow flickered at the corner of his eyes, stretching across the wharf for a moment from the rat's feet, but then vanished. Even the beast beside him cast no shadow, despite the sun. “Oh, indeed so,” the marten winked, casting an affectionate look down at the infant held easily in the crook of one arm. “Because babes wail, or will be, once the Venture makes the water.” “What of his fate!?” the wanderer cried out, but the gulls still cried, the waves splashed, and the ship still creaked against the dock. “Sealed.” The voice was rough; a low growl that was almost inhuman and the wanderer's eyes dropped down in surprise. Beside the rat the half-beast was looking at him; direct and aware. But his eyes were black, depthless pits in which stars gleamed. “The bargain has been struck.” The wanderer fell toward those eyes, toward the distant stars, and the ship and pier were whisked away around him, banished into the shadowed twilight and doors. More doors, closed and dark, and from not one did a voice come to call him back. The prey had escaped and the wanderer was left, alone, his questions unanswered. ---------- Charles Matthias stirred in his sleep, gasping for breath as he fought to banish the shadowed darkness that seemed to cavort at the edge of his mind. Around him he felt the familiar comfort of his bed, his wife Kimberly at his side, a soft breath escaping her lips and whistling across her teeth. He blinked several times as he shifted about, his injured leg throbbing. The room, darkened as it was by night, nevertheless came into focus as he sat there seeking his calm. Where once he had pondered the sands outside his native Sondeshara, now he found memories of stone coming more freely to him, soothing the savage wound of time. He ran one paw down his leg and sighed as he felt the smooth coolness of granite where once he'd had fur. Only a patch as wide as his thumb now, but what would it be in a month, a year, ten years? “A deal...” he murmured, the words strangely pertinent but he wasn't quite sure why. How many deals had he struck in his life, deals whose consequences reverberated through the years. He lifted his arm from beneath the quilts and stared at both of them held empty before them. That his flesh turned to stone was but one deal amongst so many, and by far not the worst. He swallowed and lowered his head back to the downy pillows and felt a strange disquiet fill him. A deal for passage. So soon after that other deal that had riven his heart. “A deal... my boy...” Charles closed his eyes and draped his arm across his snout. If his leg were well he would have climbed from bed and sought his vine, perhaps have even reposed within the mountainside itself for an hour or two. All that was available to him now was more sleep and the dreams that they brought. He swallowed and prayed that he would have no more. But as sleep claimed the overwrought rat, they came back for him. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>