<html> <body> Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars I: Disipicio (s) Malger was welcomed home with boisterous hugging and yapping from Suria, and a more reserved but no less delighted embrace from Misanthe. Food and drink had been prepared and arranged on a table for anyone to sample which Aspittier, their Steward, hovered over most of the night to make sure everything was fresh and properly presented; both Peter and Timothy helped the white tiger by running errands and pouring wine. Malger, after changing into more relaxed attire filled with bright but dignified colors, relaxed on a chaise sampling breaded meats and sipping wine. His family were all about him each eager for the news he brought. The afternoon proved comfortably cool and the sky, while overcast, did not offer any hint of impending rain so they opened the broad, double leaf doors onto the balcony to let fresh air into the common room. The candles guttered in their glass chimneys but refused to gutter out. From without the sounds of the Keep and small cities, Euper without and Keeptowne within, drifted to them. The ever-present scent of civilization was both rank at times and pleasant, but had become so much a familiar part of their lives that none noticed more than the sharpest of either as they drifted like passing messengers upon the breeze. Sir Intoran and Kurgael were also present and seated a short distance away taking their leisure after a job well done. Sir Egland and Elvmere joined them an hour later once their duties permitted them to come. Playful and friendly banter passed between them all, each taking their turn to provide a bit of music. Charlie was amused at the way his father deftly avoided saying much at all about his mission to the Southern Midlands. Malger insisted that he first hear all that his wife and daughter had been up to in his absence, that he terribly missed them, and could not bear another hour without being delighted by the sweet sound of their voices. Misanthe called him a flatterer while Suria was more than happy to describe everything she had done in between repeatedly asking if she could come with them to Breckaris that summer for the Schanalein wedding. Eventually, Sir Egland placed a flute in Malger's hands and stared at him with an intensity that only an elk with antlers that weighed as much as a shirt of mail on his head could. Unlike Intoran, who traveled beyond Metamor in Malger's service, he did not have to trim the broad rack upon his brow because much of the Keep and its surrounding architecture had been modified to account for the many varied forms its population now found themselves wearing. And his would regrow each year, where Intoran's did not. “It is time to share a little song together. And then you need to tell everyone about your journey. Intoran and Kurgael may know, but the rest of us are growing impatient, oh master marten!” Malger laughed, stretched his toes, and then set paws to floor as he sat up. “Very well, knight! Does everyone have something they can play? I see not! Intoran, you know where Master Lemdon keeps the house instruments; you and Kurgael go bring something for everyone, yourselves included.” “But I do not have an ear for music,” Kurgael objected, his two feathery ears drooping in the defeat he knew would come from this long-running argument. “You do not need an ear for music to ring a bell. Is that not so, Elvmere?” The raccoon spread his long-fingered hands wide in a shrug. “Given how long you have been in Archduke Sutt's service, I can only conclude that you speak the truth and possess less talent for music than an ordinary man. Even I have mastered many instruments thanks to his teaching.” Malger adjusted the flute without even looking at it and offered the raccoon a wry reprimand. “And you'd be the master of temple musicians if you let the Lothanasa name you so!” Elvmere nodded to acknowledge the frequent rebuke, but kept his eyes on the gryphon. “I would be happy to help you choose a set of bells that sound good together.” Egland shook his head in a laugh as he removed his viola from its gilded mahogany case. One of the vows he had made in establishing the capitular order of the Knights of the Holy Yew was that neither he nor any other knight in the order would own anything of themselves but all things in common and only that which was needed for the protection of the Ecclesia both priests and pilgrims. And so Sir Egland had given his beloved viola, the treasure he had carried from his homeland in Pyralis to his years serving in Yesulam and then finally to Metamor to his friend Malger for safekeeping. The plain box in which he had once kept it to keep it safe from the elements had been replaced by an exquisite mahogany case lined with gold and adorned with an elk head fashioned from inlays of cherry and sandalwood; the inside of the case was lined with soft velvet in the viola's shape to cushion the instrument. Egland treated that case as delicately as his hoof-like fingers allowed. Charlie produced a flute much like his father's. He blew a few tentative notes to check the tuning. His large ears turned and folded back in disgust until the notes sounded right. When he was satisfied he began sampling wisps of melody from a few songs his father had written. Both Malger and Misanthe's ears turned at that, and before the trio of friends returned, father and son charted an intricate dance of melody, rising and falling, cavorting this way and that about the aural landscape like a pair of birds merrily flitting through the trees. Hints of virtuosity emerged from the otherwise singing melodies. The trio returned with an assortment of instruments a few minutes later. Intoran gently laid a dulcimer and the hammers on Misanthe's lap and the vixen nodded her thanks. Elvmere carried a violin in each hand, offering one to Suria while keeping the second for himself. The bows he'd tucked beneath his chin and with a light churr in his throat, let the maned wolf capture them both. Her tail wagged as she handed one back to the raccoon who accepted it with a polite bow. Kurgael carried a pair of hand bells dangling from his beak and stretched himself out upon his breast across a backless lounge that had been fashioned for his comfort, his wings and tail relaxed to either side and behind. The lounge had a slight elevation and declivity that freed his forelimbs, like those of the raptor his forequarters resembled, to be used more like hands. Intoran headed back the way he came only to return a moment later gently hoisting a cello by the neck. Malger nodded in approval when he saw all of the instruments arranged and smiled as best he could while blowing sweet breath across the mouth of the flute. He winked toward Charlie, and the two of them chased each other in a wild arpeggio into the highest register before vanishing in a flourish of staccato notes. “Ah, good practice!” Malger said with a satisfied sigh. “Now, what notes did you give yon gryphon to play?” “Something simple,” Elvmere replied as he played a series of short notes on each of the violin's four strings. “C and G.” “So you didn't want a challenge then?” “Improvising with you is always a challenge, master!” Charlie smiled as he drummed his finger tips atop the keys. When it came to music the raccoon still thought of himself as his father's apprentice. Malger laughed and shook his head. “The key of C it is then. Kurgael, ring that C bell would you so my family and friends can tune ourselves?” The gryphon nodded and looked at the two bells in his scaled and clawed hands, pondering which one he should ring. Elvmere leaned over and tapped the larger of the two bells with the end of his bow and the gryphon cracked his beak in an avian smile of thanks. He swung the bell downward and a clear tone, lush and metallic, filled the room. Four bows were set to strings and father and son played their flutes again, everyone comparing themselves against that tone. Kurgael had to ring it twice more before each of them were satisfied. They waited for the last echoes to fade before Malger put flute to snout and blew a simple melody. It rose stepwise at first, before lilting downward as a feather might drift on the wind. It resolved itself in a quiet but pleasing cadence before he began the melody again. Misanthe joined him, thrumming a few chords on the dulcimer, giving a soft vibration to her husband's song as if it were both sung and hummed at the same time. Charlie began to play when his father repeated the lilting half of the melody. He began with a canon, repeating the first phrase of his father's melody, before embellishing it with a few trills, giving a new energy to the otherwise simple music. Beside him Suria put bow to string and started playing a counter melody of descending notes in the upper strings, like a long-breathed exhalation. The air felt pregnant with simple almost bittersweet delight and a hint of melancholy. Egland, Intoran, and Elvmere all joined in at the same time providing a lush depth to the otherwise soprano melodies from the Sutt family. Intoran and Egland especially plumed their lower strings, at first in octaves and then in tenths. Their rhythm was completely united, as both elk and oryx could anticipate each other even better than Malger and Charlie. Elvmere preferred to provide a simple harmonic line that shifted with the delicate counterpoint in the flutes and Suria's violin. The beautiful music reverberated in the air, punctuated by the occasional peals from Kurgael's bells. Even these blended into the song, as Malger and the rest were careful not to modulate to any keys in which the C and G would become unpleasant to hear. And modulate they did. Malger embellished his melody even further than Charlie had, so much so that the very harmonic structure took new turns. Charlie played a few discordant notes deliberately to add some tension, but otherwise followed his father into the new key. The quartet of strings, their voices soulful, bright, and deep, kept pace with them, while Misanthe began to hammer the dulcimer in an outline of the original melody but now faster and with increasing intensity. What had at first begun as a pleasant adagio had now accelerated into a playful allegretto. Malger and Charlie traded notes back and forth, while Suria and Elvmere mimicked them with quick staccato runs, the bows bouncing off the strings to create a humming effect as if the room were filled with butterflies. Intoran added heft to the bass with double-stops in the low strings mixed with repeated notes that threatened to become a march but could not quite manage it with the slightly off-beat tune in the flutes. Egland allowed his bow to sing with long tremolo notes as if it were a man at a dance with no partner forced to watch everyone else enjoy themselves. Egland's playing was so impassioned that as one both Charlie and Malger slowed their pace until each was echoing the other in measured chromatic turns in their lowest register. The effect was sombre and the others responded only seconds later. Kurgael appeared perplexed by all the changes, but he seemed to understand that he should let the ringing of his bells fade. Elvmere and Suria played a soft thrumming harmony with quick repeated notes, while Intoran echoed the flutes with a growling chromatic scale on his lowest string. The elk tilted his head from side to side as he drove the viola from misery into a feverish rage. Elvmere and Suria's bowing became faster and faster, more exaggerated as they rose up out of the depths to their highest string. Malger and Charlie followed them up, dancing around each other in discordant scales. Misanthe struck notes next to each other to add to the confusion. Intoran bowed heavy chords on three strings, a tremendous feat since his hands only had two thick fingers. And just when the music reached a brilliant climax, Suria shot into a fast-paced dance with a wicked grin spread across her fangs. Even Charlie had to fight not to chuckle into his flute at her feisty invention. Kurgael awkwardly rang both of his bells much faster, looking back and forth at the rest of the musicians hoping that somebody would let him know he was doing the right thing. The other string players were quick to follow Suria in her new light-hearted dance. Malger piped a bright little counter melody that Charlie immediately recognized as yet another variation on the original theme. He joined his father in the merrymaking and soon all of them were tapping paws and hooves, rocking back and forth in time to the beat; even Kurgael seemed to feel it right as he was able, after a few false starts, to ring his bells on the beat. With a final flourish, all of them blew and bowed a brilliant chord in the original key and waited to let the sound echo away in the chamber. Malger took a deep breath and lowered his flute, jowls twitching to straighten out his whiskers. Charlie felt his heart pounding with the excitement and his whiskers trembled as he finally lowered his flute. Egland lowered his viola with tender care. Intoran leaned back, both hands wrapped about the cello's neck, his head tipped back in a warm laugh. “Ah, now that was fun. A good warm up. We must –” He trailed off, his smile widening, at the distant sound of applause drifting in through the open balcony doors. Turning, they all looked through the open doors and spied the balcony that stood from the Keep wall some distance opposite them and a floor higher where the Duke relaxed with his own family. Malger stood and walked out onto the balcony to offer the royal family a wave and then a courtly bow replete with flourish of hands and tail before returning to his family and guests. “It seems our audience approves.” He chuckled warmly, brushing his fingers lightly across the ruff of Misanthe's neck as he came to stand behind the lounge upon which she reclined while Suria sat at its foot. “As I meant to say, we should gather to enjoy song and music more often. And well you should, even in my absence.” He admonished with a glance at Charlie and Egland. “A house of music is one bereft of sorrow.” “Did you play any down south?” Egland asked as he returned his viola to its case. “Oh, snatches here and there,” Malger admitted. “When there was time. I suppose I owe everyone a little story about what happened.” “Yes, Father!” Suria begged, eyes bright, ears erect, and tail stiff with her excitement. “Tell us what happened!” ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>