<html> <body> And at long last I can begin posting Pars III! I apologize for the large delay between these large scale sections, but I am trying to keep one section ahead of what I'm posting. There will be six sections in total for this story once it is finished (sometime next year). Recall that scenes set in 724 are 16 years after the current timeline. --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars III: Descensum (a) Tuesday, June 22, 724 CR – Early Evening “Charles Matthias Sutt, you stop right there young man!” Misanthe's sharp bark cut through the air with the snap of a catapult's release. Charlie bristled but did not slow, catching the heavy wooden door and shoving it behind him. They were upon him like magpies; first his father and now, before he could find any refuge in his own chambers, his mother; relentless in their pursuit of him. “Do not call me that!” He yelled at the emptiness of the foyer before him though intended for the vixen, his adoptive mother, who slipped deftly through the door before it crashed shut. “Charles Matthias Sutt, you stop! Stop right there, right now, and tell me what in the dark dream that was all about?” She challenged in a harsh growl as she caught up to him in the main hall of the Sutt residences of Metamor Keep. She caught at the sleeve of Charlie's shirt and hauled him up short. With an irritated hiss past his teeth Charlie stopped and turned on his mother. “Don't call me that!” He snapped again, his ears and whiskers back, his tail lashing furiously behind him. Misanthe met his angry gaze glare for glare, her vulpine tail motionless behind her diminutive frame as he turned to face her. Her tapered muzzle, teeth gleaming, came only to his chest forcing her to look up. “Call you what, young man?” Her growl was a low churr, one full of warning and menace. He had heard it many times in the years of his youth, when he had overstepped himself in some way that displeasured her, and it often heralded the application of a willow switch to his backside. Despite her petite stature she had not hesitated to mete out just discipline when it was warranted to such a degree that the child Charlie had often wished that it had been delivered by his father instead. But he was deaf to the warning in her tone and could only hiss a growl and throw his hands in the air. “Matthias!” He bellowed furiously, leaning down until he was almost nose to nose with the vixen, his blue eyes wild. “I am not a Matthias!” He slapped his breast with one hand releasing a cloud of tourney field dust. “I have never been a Matthias, and I never shall -” Charles' outburst chuffed into shocked silence as his head was turned by a surprisingly strong slap across his muzzle. Misanthe may have been small, and a Duchess, but she was not averse to menial labor and it showed in the strength hidden under her lush russet pelt. Stunned, Charlie clapped a hand to the side of his muzzle. “Don't you dare, Charles, belittle the blood from which you sprang!” She fairly snarled up at him, the tip of a black claw wagging an inch from his startled nose. “You have no right to treat your father as you did out there!” Her arm swung to point back behind herself toward the distant tournament field. Rubbing the side of his muzzle Charlie scowled. “He's not my father,” he groused with a back-eared, flat-whiskered scowl. “He is,” Misanthe growled warningly. “As much as Malger is. Moreso, even. He loves you no less for being a Sutt.” “How can you say that, mother?” Charlie railed. “He gave me – no! No, he sold me away!” He waved his hands helplessly with a loud groan of anger. “For a ghost!” Misanthe rocked back on the pads of the paws hidden beneath her voluminous skirts and sighed, her ears and whiskers backing as she blinked. “No, Charlie, he did not.” She sighed slowly with a shake of her head. “He resisted the very thought of it with all of his being.” “He did not!” Charlie protested. “I've seen his dreams, his memories. He sold me, like a cull, for the ghost of my dead – brother.” He hissed the last word short, loathe to admit he had a brother, alive or dead. “I know full well what he did, Charlie, I was there.” Charlie's brows knitted with a scowl. “Malger was there. Nocturna was there, bargaining for me like a damnable fishwife. You were not in the dream with them, but in the waking world watching over them.” He crossed his arms and glowered down at her with an expression perfected only for youthful rebellion. “You countenanced this?” With a frown Misanthe nodded slowly. “I was not a Sutt then, Charlie. I served your father, I did not tell him what to or not to do.” Her fingers brushed his arm lightly. “That you are a Sutt is one of Charles' greatest regrets, Charlie, and it pains him still, even after fifteen years. He feels he failed as a father, having lost both the eldest and youngest of his firstborn. You should not denigrate him for your having been brought into our family. He had little choice.” “But,” Charlie argued, his anger cooled but his frustration hardly lessened, “he bargained with Nocturna for my very soul. He gave me to her – to you. Why would he do that?” “Because he must, for you. As for why, that is a question I cannot answer, my son.” Turning about Misanthe strode back to the door. “I was not in the Dream, and for months afterward even Malger would say nothing about it to me. Charles never has, it was that upsetting. If you want to know more, you need to ask him. But don't press; you've seen his memories, his nightmares. If they are so unpleasant now, imagine how they impacted him when he was living them.” Grasping the door latch she drew it open. “As well, you need to find him and apologize for your childish behavior.” Wagging an admonishing finger toward him, she added, “You have many to apologize to, young man, beyond your sire. Maysin, for one, whom was left saddled and ready to bear you from the field and you left her there, neglected as if she were merely a common horse.” Charlie tightened his hands into fists, hiding the wince from the prick of short claws. “I don't want to hear it from Father. Why should I listen to it from the one who gave me up?” Misanthe glared, a tightening of the eyes and a subtle lifting of her jowls that only a mother could perform for her children. “Why should I listen to my sire?” Her voice held that steely edge of disapproval, but there was a soft gentleness too, as though her reprimand had been given in full already. “You cannot know about this in part, Charlie. Your sire is the only one who knows the rest. He will not force himself on you, he loves you too much for that. You must go to him. And it would be best for you, young man, if I were not to find you here again until after you have spoken with him.” With that final promise, his adoptive mother swept back out the door, leaving Charlie all alone in the main hall of their home. He stared at the door for more seconds than he could count, simmering and smarting. Charlie pulled the short chewstick he'd brought with him to his teeth and gnawed as he tried to sort out his thoughts. Behind him he heard a door opening – likely one of the servants going about their task and pretending not to have overheard the entire confrontation with his mother. Charlie was in no mood to be disturbed by them either. The stick between his teeth he stormed out of his home and then through the passages of the Keep. He found the tower stairs after only a few turns and began climbing. To keep his mind from everything else he counted the steps as he usually did. After only a hundred he lost count, but in the exhaustion from climbing so many steps at the very least he had a brief respite from his anger. After several minutes of climbing Charlie at last emerged onto a balcony overlooking Keeptowne to the south. He collapsed into a stone seat as the wind picked and clawed at his fur. Formerly belonging to an old astronomer of Metamor who'd vanished the year before his birth – some bird named Channing – the balcony was warded to prevent anyone from accidentally falling to their death. It was not used much anymore and so Charlie had taken it as his personal hiding place when he wished solitude. He could clearly see Keeptowne and its streets, and in the distance the tourney fields, the High Box, and all of the festivities. Beyond that and down the hill was the town of Euper but he only could see its edges. To his right Metamor river snaked through the folds of hill and forest, while the valley opened up before him, the woods retreating in favor of farms and pasture. Only the faintest of echoes from the city could reach him at so high a height and that day, the sun glimmering above the western mountains as it descended in its evening course, he could hear only the wind crying against the stone. And then, lowering his face against the cold railing, Charlie could only do the same. His chest heaved with sobs as all of the anger melted into sorrow. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>