<html> <body> --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars II: Denuncio (k) Tuesday, June 22, 724 CR Beneath the High Box Steward Thalberg had arranged a room dug into the cool earth to house supplies of wine and food for the Ducal families and visiting dignitaries such as the Vysehrad king as well as preparation rooms with their own ovens, vents, and even a few narrow windows where the cooks could watch the tourneys between courses. It was there that Sigismund spent part of his day at his father's side dutifully learning all he must if he was to one day serve as chief steward to Bryn. There were always a few Keepers there to make sure the latest course of delicacies was being prepared. Not so with the storage room for the wine and foodstuffs. Within the earth chilled and windowless confines of wine and dry food rack, hanging slabs of fresh or dried meat and wheels of wax-sealed cheeses a single wan witchlight hung in a simple glass lantern offering dim light. Charlie found a dark corner in which he could crouch and fume where the light did not shine. He furiously gnawed at his chewstick hoping for some measure of control over his rage, a rage that spilled from frothing fury to bitter weeping moment to moment, but he had no solace in those few minutes of silence and solitude. A shaft of light swept across the earthen floor as the door from the makeshift kitchen opened. The light reached nearly to the tip of his tail, but even as a shadow filled the frame of light, he stayed where he was, claws gripping his chewstick, incisors paused but ready to gnaw again should he be left alone. But the eyes and nose of Keepers, even in the midst of the craze of a festival, were always too good. Through the doorway stepped an irate and indignant marten, one paw clasping his feathered hat to keep it from tangling in cobwebs as he maneuvered around a shelf of cheese and bread. His shadowed eyes found Charlie within seconds. “There you are. What in the hells was all that about, Charlie?” His voice was an indignant, furious growl but it kept low considering the service staff beyond the cellar no doubt keenly aware of an angry father and son now sequestered within. His serious tone held a forbidding weight in its tenor animal growl; a father's weight. One arm waved back behind him toward the field, toward the injured rat-turned-to-stone that he had left behind and the scrutiny of the crowds left to ponder what had occurred. Rumor and speculation was probably already fast spreading through all of the spectators, from commoner to noble; none of it flattering of course. Charlie bristled at the tone and nearly snapped his chewstick in half with his hands. “You promised, Father. You promised you would talk with him but you didn't.” The slender rod creaked and cracked as he wrung it between his strong rodent paws. “What are you...” Malger blinked with a scowl upon his muzzle, his voice trailing off for a moment. “Baron Matthias? Is that what this...” His expression for a moment grew distant and then became suddenly colder than the meat hanging from hooks in the deepest shadow. His voice, already cold, now growled in its deepest register, a fury bridled for eavesdropping ears but no less threatening. “Tell me you didn't go back into the Baron's dreams. Tell me you didn't force him to relive them.” “I did!” Charlie lurched up from the floor to brace his father eye-to-eye though he did not step from the shadows that embraced him. “And I saw what he did! I saw why I'm a Sutt now. He deserved what happened on that field! He deserves worse!” Charlie found his voice rising in octaves, and his arms trembling so much that he dropped the chewstick. The clatter of its falling was lost behind angry words and hastened breaths. Malger took a deep breath and shook his head. “Charlie, my son, you should not have done that. You should have listened to me.” His voice lost the harsh growl of fury only to be replaced by a sour sigh, his whiskers flattened back against his angular muzzle and the short round curves of his ears lost in the immaculately groomed fur of his head as they laid back. “You promised to speak with him! You never did!” Charlie stretched one arm out and waved his hand around as if he were swatting flies. Behind him his tail lashed, thumping against the stout wooden pillars framing the cellar and rising up to support the High Box above. “You both lied about the real reason I'm a Sutt all these years! He sold me to Nocturna, to you, for a ghost!” He stabbed a finger in the direction of the tournament field where he had left his startled, injured sire standing as a statue. “I am no longer his flesh and blood, no longer his son!” Dropping his arm he looked to his feet where the fallen chewstick lay upon the hard-packed earthen floor. “I never was.” “Charlie...” Malger's grip on the rim of his hat tightened, claws digging into the soft felt. “Calm yourself. What have I taught you? What you did out there... you humiliated your sire, a friend and ally to your own – our – House!” Malger touched the fine, dexterous fingers of one hand to his own breast as he spoke earnestly, but still with the weight of a father irate. “You shamed yourself, your mother, and me in front of the Duke and a visiting King! Be grateful no one could hear whatever it was you screamed at your sire; although now I think I can guess.” He took a step closer in the cellar storage and his whiskers bristled along either side of his muzzle. Sharp, predatory teeth gleamed from the dark fur of his muzzle behind his lips. “One of the most important lessons I taught you from an early age was how careful we must be when we influence the dreams of others; rashness and overtness can draw the attention of shadows and daedric monsters. You put yourself and your sire in great danger. And for what, to see something you don't understand!” “So explain it to me, Father!” Charlie snapped, sneering the last word more than he meant to. He could feel an inward rebuke from the tightening of his father's eyes. “Explain to me why Baron Matthias would be selling his eldest son to Nocturna in exchange for a ghost!” And then, in a cooler voice, though no less pregnant with anger, he added, “And why you were witness to this.” His accusatory finger came up short of poking his father in the breast as the two stood a mere arm's length apart. “He did no such thing. You only came to be a Sutt after the journey to Sondeshara and only after much contemplation and after your talent had manifested itself. They gave you to my care because they loved you and knew you would be better off as a Sutt. But every moment your sire has had with you since that day has been filled to overflowing with happiness for him – until today. And I know you love him still or you would not be so angry with him.” “I do not!” Charlie seethed at his father's words, each of which pricked him more deeply than any thrust of the sword Vidika had ever taught him a lesson with. “If he didn't sell me, then why did Nocturna herself appear in the dream to relive that moment? Why did she demand my soul in exchange for my brother's? I know it happened; I saw it twice! And I know you know what I'm talking about. I saw it in your eyes when I first mentioned it after you returned home and I can see it now. Tell me, father!” Malger took a deep breath and very slowly began to nod. “All right, Charlie. Aye, you saw something that did happen. But you do not understand the whole of it.” He held up a hand when Charlie's muzzle opened to demand he explain. “Aye, I will explain it to you. But not here where the servants will hear. These are secrets buried deep and they must remain that way. Do you understand?” Charlie scowled but nodded, doing his best to hold back his anger and pain so long as it meant he would receive the answers he demanded; answers owed him. “Where do you want to go?” “The Blue Note. It will be quiet now, and the servants there know better than to listen in on my dealings.” “I suppose you want me to apologize to everyone else first?” Charlie groused; he felt no apology in him, but again, if that is what his father demanded in exchange for answers... “You should, and mark my words you will, but for now we'll let that wait. Charles was being taken back to the Keep the last I saw, likely to see Coe or one of the other healers to tend to the injury you left him. I'll tell Versyd where I'm going and he'll let your mother know we're all right; in a little while.” Charlie dug his claws into his chewstick and stepped out of the shadow to follow his father, giving the wooden planks at his side another whack with his tail for good measure. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>