<html> <body> --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars II: Denuncio (p) Friday, May 11, 708 CR “Archduke Malger dae ross Sutt,” a chittering voice announced with verve and aplomb. “Welcome once again to Glen Avery! I humbly apologize that I was not here yesterday to extend my welcome.” Malger, who had been enjoying a relatively quiet meal of eggs, sausages, and bread with a strawberry jam between his two much larger friends enjoying plates of bread and roughage more suitable to their mostly herbivorous palate, looked up from his table to see a well-dressed gray squirrel surrounded by a trio of warriors crossing the Mountain Hearth common room. He recognized the badger Angus but he did not know either the deer or the skunk at the squirrel's side. “Baron Brian Avery, no need to apologize! I am here to enjoy myself, not to cause any political uproar. Besides, the last time I visited you thought me a mere minstrel!” Baron Avery stopped when he reached the other side of the table, his cheeks puffed with a playful grin only a squirrel could manage. “A minstrel we may have thought you, but there was nothing mere about you! Your reputation has always been very colorful, your grace!” The squirrel's eyes flicked to the crescent medallion on Malger's chest with a bit of unease, but he gave no other sign of it. “Colorful? After all the work I have put into spreading my fame that is the only word that comes to mind? Please, sit, all of you and join us. Master Jurmas, a meal for my friends!” Even as Avery and the others sat down on the bench opposite Malger, Egland, and Intoran, the squirrel could not help but offer an objection. “This is my home, your grace. It is I who should be offering you a feast.” “Then perhaps I am here to cause a political uproar!” Malger challenged around a bit of sausage. He grinned wide after swallowing. Avery laughed and shook his head. “You are incorrigible and gracious. Very well I accept. Thank you, your grace.” “Malger, please, or else we will be twisting our tongues in knots navigating endless titles.” “Then just Brian as well,” the squirrel replied with a firm smile. “Angus you know. This is Alldis my chief hunter,” he gestured to the deer and then to the skunk, “and Berchem, my chief archer.” “I am honored to make your acquaintance. Now, Angus, how fare your trainees these days? Are any more in need of different lessons?” The badger guffawed and slapped the table with a meaty paw making their plates and cups jump. Wide-eyed, Intoran grabbed his mug before it tipped over and spilled juice across his lap. “Oh, nay, nay, nothing as bad as those Lorland folk. The men of Bradanes are made of sterner stuff and don't need me to tell them what sort of blades best fits their new bodies. Although if you are interested in a bout I assure you we will have an audience! I would welcome it.” “Perhaps this afternoon,” Malger replied with a grin. With only a practice blade the badger had kept Malger's twin swords at bay for longer than he'd ever expected; and in the end they had ended up killing each other to the wonder of the trainees who had come from Lorland hoping for a better life in the Glen. That day they had learned that they each had to find the weapon best suited to their Curse-shaped bodies, and to do that, they first had to stand up to the always intimidating Angus. “It would be my pleasure to cross blades with you again.” “I understand you are here to visit your old friend, Murikeer Khunnas. Tell me, what did you think of the land and home I gave to our reclusive mage?” Dabbing his whiskers with a napkin Malger chuffed a soft laugh, raising a furry brow. “I have but seen it only in brief, so what I might think of it – beyond vine covered destitution of a once proud villa – I could not forthrightly say. Murikeer has asked that I meet him there today, however.” He grinned with a flash of bright teeth and a glint of dark eyes. “I would wager he imagines my patronage in its restoration, or at the very least a hand in décor.” Brian's ears twitched and he tilted his head curiously, unsure if the once-minstrel was piqued or amused by his friend's request. “I understand him to be a capable hand at illusions, so décor would be a simple task.” “Ahh, that he is.” Malger sipped his wine while Jurmas deftly cleared the table before him. “One day I will have to regale you with how his illusions served me for the better part of a year. But,” he held up a cautioning finger theatrically, “the illusion of a chair fit for a king is nothing if it masks one so aged and rotten it shatters the moment your posterior comes to rest.” Brian nodded and smiled brightly as he pushed back his chair and stood. “With mages one can never be sure if what they see is truly what they are looking upon.” With a bow and a swing of one arm, and a flourish that only his newfound – by a decade – tail could offer the baron stepped back. “As with minstrels, yes? I have duties that are most impatient, even to one entertaining such august guests, so I should depart. I am pleased at your return and look forward to you joining us for an evening meal at some point during your stay?” Malger merely nodded in return to the bow as he rose and offered his hand. “As with magic and minstrels indeed, my friend. I hope to accept your offer, aye, soon. Fare you well, Brian.” Brian Avery grasped the marten's hand with a laugh and gave it a firm shake before turning to wander out with his worthies in train. Malger settled back into his seat and saw the squirrel stop to talk with another patron. It only took him a moment to recognize the broad-shouldered rat with the palm-shaped scar over one eye as the same one Malger had plucked from the soupy ruin of a decimated jungle following the final destruction of Marzac. “Egland –” he glanced toward the elk only to pause when he saw the conversation between rat and squirrel come to conclusion and the rat's attention turn toward his table. From the rat's brief glance he read diffidence and momentary indecision set aside. Before he had even took the first step toward Malger's table the marten knew he intended to ask something of him. Perhaps Malger had the financial means to patron a manor house for his new fief? Ahhh, politics, Malger thought as he stood with a smile. “Sir Charles! It is a great pleasure to see you again.” He pawed at the air with one hand to summon the diffident rat closer. “My congratulations on your investiture.” Albeit a relatively lowly title, but after almost a decade as nothing more than a commoner Malger was not about to gainsay even a minor title so recently granted. Charles came closer to the table with more confidence at being greeted, smiling as he conversed with the Elk and Oryx. Malger looked on and listened to the friends touch base while he sipped his wine. Misanthe watched as well, drifting back just enough to be out of direct attention with the perfection of a trained servant; not close enough to be considered eavesdropping but not so far that she could not jump to provide for any whim of her patron. “– it is something I can only mention when we are alone,” Charles explained to the knight and his squire with a diffident smile, unsure how his request would be received. Malger was achingly familiar with those words; such were also words of politesse often coming around to intrigues of person or state. Egland cast a brief glance toward him, catching Malger's eye, but the marten merely gave the most minor shakes of his head. “I do not think we need fear Sir Charles bringing me to harm,” He reassured the knights, smiling brightly when Charles' attention shifted from them. “If you would care to follow me, Sir Charles, I will escort you somewhere that we can speak without bringing temptation to idle ears.” Reaching out to grasp Charles' shoulder he turned and, slipping his arm across the rat's shoulders, conspiratorially drew him close and turned toward the narrow stairs nearby. “My chambers are above at the rear, and offer a splendid view of the lake not far from here. Though I hazard that master Avery's home has a much better view.” “Being in the treetops, I doubt he can see the ground save in winter, your grace,” Charles replied as Malger brought him around the table and ushered him toward the stairs. Misanthe had already disappeared up them, drifting off during Charles' request for privacy like a russet hued shadow. The rat's tail brushed Malger's front as they mounted the narrow stair which always gave Egland some problems, especially late in the season when his antlers had gained their full growth. “I had not considered that,” Malger admitted. “I've never visited the Avery home, though I've been in a few treelimb bowers over the years.” Charles lapsed into a contemplative silence as they made their way into the sumptuously appointed suite that was reserved for just such occasions; the visit of nobility. He invited Charles to take a seat and settled into one himself, reclining back to listen. Misanthe was somewhere in the room, he knew, once more secreting herself in her now natural vulpine form most likely beneath the very chair in which he sat. Ignoring her intrusion into the privacy Charles had asked for he listened to the rat's small talk. Something's gnawing at him, Malger thought as the conversation began to circle, as such conversations always did, the true point at their heart. Without much prompting he brought Charles to tighten that timorous circling while, in his breast, a sense of unease began to gnaw at Malger's heart. “I still do not know what you want of me,” He prompted carefully, sensing what pit lay at the center of the rat's inward spiraling discourse. The mention of his wife's grief, pain, and memory of her lost son's last moments left a tightness in Malger's gut that had nothing to do with the gruesome description of that death. That she would turn to the Temple and the pantheon in the last hours spoke volumes of her horror and anguish. How close, Malger thought to himself, had she trod toward the shadows or even the darkness in desperation for her son's life? Far, far too close not nearly so close as the scar-faced rat was now stepping. “I have lost my son without ever once being able to say goodbye to him,” Charles said toward the clasped hands in his lap, whiskers adroop and ears backed. “And there is no way that I can without aid.” Slowly his gaze came up, dark and earnest with rodentine hope. “That is where you can help me, Malger.” No 'your grace', despite the burdensome weight of his petition; man to man, not station to station. And the thought of it left Malger hollow to the core with dread. What he had done, once, came at such a steep price he did not know if he could ever do it again and live. “No, Charles,” Malger shook his head slowly, the expression on his musteline muzzle horror-stricken, “I cannot help you. You do not even know what it is you are asking of me.” Charles leaned forward, hands clenching in his lap. “You are a servant of Nocturna,” The rat's fingers flickered toward the polished silver crescent hanging upon the breast of Malger's finely tailored shirt. “You have ways that are mysterious and hidden from men! Even learned men, those who walk in the light of their gods and wield the powers of the world as a smith a hammer!” Malger nodded slowly, his whiskers drooping as he looked down. Abruptly he leaned forward and stood, too frought with concern to keep still. “I can walk in dream, aye, and I have striven far too little to maintain that secrecy. I can send omens, lighten the horror of nightmares, such things as that,” he explained as he paced from hearth to balcony and back in agitation. “Perhaps, I can help your Lady ameliorate the pain of that grief, for it is truly the sharpest of blades and cuts the deepest. But that is all.” He cut the air with one hand, outstretched fingers pointing toward Charles when his hand snapped to stillness. “I cannot bring the dead back to life!” The rat shook his head vehemently, leaning forward in his chair and gazing up at the distraught nobleman. “That is not what I am asking you to do. And what I am asking you to do... I know that you can do.” His ears pinned forward as he tried to convey the import of his desire. “You've done it before, for Murikeer.” Malger felt the revelation cut through him like the blade of a knife fashioned of glacial ice. He sagged back against the foot of the bed. “He told me about what you did for him, bringing Llyn's soul back for one moment in a dream so that the wounds struck in the moments before her death could be healed.” Charles stood slowly to face the marten, once minstrel, now lord, but all the while a walker of dreams and toucher of souls. Malger, despite the confident out mein drilled into him for decades, shank back from the dark-eyed gaze of the rat. “I am asking of you the same thing! Bring my son back for just one dream. Bring him back so that I might say good-bye!” Charles dropped his hands, which had come up as if to grasp Malger's shoulders but were held in abeyance, his gaze faltering and then shifting to one side. His ears twitched as if at some sound Malger could not hear. “And offer my wife a token showing that he is truly well and protected by Eli. That he no longer knows the pain that she saw him suffer.” His gaze came back up, though softened from its earlier frenetic entreaty. “This one thing will heal the wounds in our family, so that we can move on from this grief, and be the better parents our children need, and deserve.” Malger opened his muzzle, paused, closed it and chewed his lower lip. He took a long breath and let it out slowly to steady himself. Much better to face an assassin's blade than a friend's need. “You are asking for more than you know, Charles,” he explained slowly, pacing once again, tail lashing behind him in agitation. “What was done for Murikeer... there was a price for that. It was a gift from me because...” He paused and looked back at the rat. “I loved Llyn as well, and wished to tender my farewell to her as much as Murikeer. I did not expect what would come of my request.” He shook his head and laced his fingers behind his back, looking toward the hearth. “I cannot do the same for you. There will be a price that you and Kimberly must pay to enter the dreams, and another to pay if you wish to see this ghost of your Ladero.” He looked back over his shoulder to hold Charles' gaze levelly. “Something I cannot promise will happen. I cannot even promise that a price can be paid for this! It is... not up to me. Bringing Llyn back nearly brought the southern lands to war, again, at the return of nothing more than my Name! Assassins would have had my head on a pike, and nearly did but for the efforts of that fox.” He cut a hand toward the chair under which Misanthe still hid, despite having been observed in her secrecy. Charles wrung his hands and stood, unmoving, while Malger paced the room like a cornered animal. “You've done it once. Why not a second time?” “It is complicated. I do not even know what Nocturna did to bring Llyn's soul back! But,” Malger held up a staying hand when Charles' muzzle opened to speak. “I will ask,” he said after a moment with a sigh. “I can see the paid this has caused you, and I can only imagine the pain that has been left to your wife who bore witness to it. Or your pupil who tried, and failed, to hold that life together.” He turned from the hearth to face Charles squarely. “Can you wait until tomorrow to learn whether or not this is even possible?” Charles took a long breath and held it a moment to steady the jangling of his nerves before letting it out in a gust. “I can wait another day.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “I have already waited so many,” he continued after a moment, his ear twitching again at an unheard sound. He shook his head and heaved another steadying sigh. “It is an agony to me, but I will wait to hear your answer tomorrow. If it is a yes, if Nocturna agrees, what will we need to do?” Malger nodded slowly, lips pursing briefly and angling his long whiskers forward. “I will need to bring you and Kimberly into the dream, to bring you before Nocturna to hear what price she will ask of you.” His eyes held Charles' gaze levelly and leaned forward slightly. “Charles, you do realize that it is Nocturna of whom you ask this favor? Not me, not Eli; Nocturna. I know that the Ecclesia forbids Followers such as you from having any rapport with Her, or any of the Pantheon light or dark.” Malger's gaze shifted from one rodentine eye to the other, fervently hoping that Charles would back down from his insane desire if his faith was thrown back at him. But Charles merely steeled himself and nodded. “That is my choice,” he said without a moment's hesitation. “And for that reason, I ask you to keep this to yourselves.” His gaze dropped down toward the chair hiding the small vixen listening in. “Do not even tell me wife. Lady Kimberly, if she knew what I intended, would be heartbroken all the more if it failed.” Charles finally broke his stance and gazed at the window looking out on the lower boughs of the Glen's trees. “Whatever price must be paid, I shall pay it alone, and only I will stand before Nocturna to pay it. Only then will we bring my Lady to join us; only once the bargain has been set and successful.” Slowly he brought his gaze back, pausing as if some realization had only then occurred to him. “And, to bring us – me, into the –” “Oh!” Malger huffed when the old rumors came to the fore once again. How little they knew. Raising one hand he held his fingers before the concerned rat's gaze. “Nay, I know your thoughts, and such measures are not the only path.” At the rat's relieved sigh Malger chuffed and shook his head. “But I promised that I will ask and so I shall.” Stepping forward he raised a hand and rested it upon Charles' shoulder, leaning close until they stood whisker to whisker. “I will convey your request in all of its particulars and will tell you the answer, and what must be done, tomorrow morning.” He dropped his hand back to his side and straightened his back, the weight of what the rat wished of him all but crushing his heart in worry and no little fear. He had not known what he was asking when he sought out Mosha on Murikeer's behalf. Now he knew that it was a goddess he would be approaching, and would not be her mortal Love when he did so, but merely a petitioner for a Heavenly boon. “Are there any other details I should know?” Charles shook his head. “I only ask this because I see no other recourse to ease the wounds that we have suffered.” Malger frowned with a sigh. “Charles, almost all families lose a child, often more than one, to sickness. They suffer their grief, they carry it, and they move on.” He turned and paced back to the foot of the bed to look at the mirror about the bureau, at the inhuman visage that looked back at him. “Few – none! – have this chance, Sir Charles. The cost asked of you may be more crippling than any wound you feel now. It may be a price you cannot pay.” “There are many ways a payment can be made,” Charles assured him, the rat's visage looking at his back in the mirror. “I hope that we can find one suitable that will not be as fearsome as – what you may fear.” The rat took a deep breath, his gaze shifting from Malger's back to the mirror and the minstrel-cum-nobleman's gaze therein. “That is my request, your grace. If I have your leave, I must see to my duties in the Narrows so that I might return home before the evening meal is served.” Malger did not turn from his contemplation of the gaily clad stranger in the mirror who bartered men's souls for ghosts. “Of course. Go in peace, Sir Charles. May you and your family walk in paths of Light.” Charles stared at him in the mirror for a moment, his whiskers twitching, but he said nothing before bobbing his head and turning away. Malger listened to the click of his claws on the floor and the steps beyond until silence fell. “He may lose his soul,” Misanthe observed from the chair into which she had jumped when the rat left. “What he asks is too much of you, Master.” Still Malger did not turn at the bird-like piping of the small fox's voice. “That he might, Misanthe, that he might. My soul was already Her's... it fills me with dread what she might ask of him.” “A costly price, Master.” “Malger.” And still he did not turn. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>