<html> <body> Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars III: Descensum (g) Monday, May 7, 708 CR Charles opened his eye and the world came into focus before him. The thin bedsheets were tangled around his legs and tail as if he'd been turning in his sleep. Beside him reposed his wife, her downy tan fur along her cheeks suffused with a soft smile as of a dream whose odor of sweetness persisted into the first glimmers of consciousness. Charles pondered in vain what he had dreamed of but only the silence of the early morning before the sun's rise replied. If not for the beastly eyes he now bore he doubted he would have even seen his wife only the stretch of an arm away. A sullen disquiet seemed to persist in the air as he blinked and twitched his whiskers. A faint whiff of the chai from the night before clung to the fur on his snout. The musk of the hearth fire and their own odors drowned everything else out. But all of it felt thin too, almost insubstantial. Not a dream, though for those few moments as he lay there, the rat languished in the uncertainty. And even as he grasped the edge of the linen sheets and worked his feet and tail loose for a moment he felt as it were a stranger's hands reaching out to clasp the covers. Before him he glimpsed a pair of thin hands with long fingers tipped with short, sharp claws, each of which sprouted short, dense fur at the wrists that thickened along the arms. Those hands twisted and moved, subtle in their art, with a care about their claws so as not to tear the fabric. He marveled in that brief moment before he realized that those were his paw-like hands, and his claws, and his will guiding them. Charles took a deep breath, flexed his fingers to savor the feel of them returned, and then pulled his legs and tail free from the winding grasp of linen. He eased himself off the bed and lifted right hand to his forehead. And there his hand stopped for several seconds as he pondered what it was he was attempting to do. Your duty. Clarity returned in full at last and Charles smiled. There would be time for his morning prayers later. His hand lowered, scratched gently over his bare chest, and then spread outward in a quick stretch. He cast a quick glance back at his wife who still enjoyed the nepenthe of sleep. For a moment he reached out to wake her, but then drew back his hand. She should enjoy her sleep; once the five... four children woke she would have precious little of that. As a long, quiet sigh escaped his snout, his paws searched through his clothes chests for something suitable to wear. Kimberly began to stir as Charles slipped his suit of chain mail over the linen shirt he'd selected. He tugged at the hem to keep it from bunching in the rings even as his ears turned to listen to his wife as she shifted about in the bed. A slight smile creased his jowls as he heard her yawn and stretch. Charles draped his vest over one arm and gathered a sword, buckler, and small knapsack in the other. For a moment he paused at the door to listen for his children too but they were all sound asleep. He stepped outside into a wet and cool morning. The sun had risen but had not yet crested the eastern mountains suffusing all in the forest with a gray veneer. Mud coated the ground and his toes sank into it as soon as he stepped out. He splayed his toes as wide as he could to give himself purchase and worked his way around the large roots framing the entrance to his home toward the stable Saulius' knight friends had built for him last winter. Malicon, his roan pony, greeted him with a whicker and a scrape of hoof against paddock wall. Charles draped his buckler and tabard across the stall and hoisted a bag of grain over his shoulder. He filled Malicon's trough and while the pony contented itself, his eyes fixed upon something dear to his heart. In the corner of the stables where one of the roots of the massive redwood in which his home dwelt emerged through the wooden slats only to disappear into the earth before reaching the opposite wall nestled a sinuous green vine of ivy along which broad leaves stretched and delicate purple blossoms grew. His eyes warmed, his breath exhaled with sweetness, and his muscles relaxed as a gracious peace touched him. This vine had been a gift to Charles from the Wind Children of the ancient and magical Åelfwood. Who the Wind Children truly were he did not know. The little smile that had teased the corners of his snout now sketched an inchoate laugh. They had made themselves known in a swirl of dried leaves, acorns, and loose twigs that had danced about each of their company one by one. Their own faces and shapes were reflected back to them in that whirling cascade of mulch, much to each of their delight and wonder. But the Wind Children had paid special attention to Charles who at the time was living stone whose only hope of returning to flesh remained in the future. They had circled his body many times, testing every granite crevice and almost, were it possible, tickling him with their effervescent touch. And when they finally continued on whatever course creatures of wind fancied to set he had been surprised to discover this vine growing from his back just above the base of his tail. There it had remained for roughly five months, nourishing in some esoteric way from his granite body and then later his body of flesh once that had returned to him. It had curled from his back around his chest, and the back again, working upwards toward his shoulder and neck with a gentleness that impressed him deeply. So deeply in fact that the thought of any harm, even a bruise coming to that vine had filled him with a wretched horror. Nor was it like any other ivy. Twice already it had come to his defense. The first time had been while they were laboring through the Marzac swamps; another plant had attacked them, attempting to transform them into a panoply of grotesque yellow flowers for its tempting garden. How well Charles could remember the sight of poor Lindsey who'd been first attacked, his face and chest unfolding into large petals collapsing against the water's fetid surface. But the vine had stretched from his body and choked that ensnaring plant until its vegetative fury was sapped and it released them all. The second time had been in his fight against his old friend, corrupted by Marzac, Krenek Zagrosek. It had tried to choke him too but the fires of Marzac had burned the vine badly, ruining its flowers and fronds until only a fraction of its length could be saved. For two months he'd let it grow in his flesh again so that it might regain its former strength. And often he had felt its gentle embrace like a guiding and grateful hand as he navigated the dangers they had faced. Charles loved and trusted the vine given him by the Wind Children. Even after learning that he could remove it from his flesh without bringing it harm he only rarely did so. Until he returned to the Glen and showed it to his wife. The rat's smile dimmed as a moue spread to take its place. He could understand his wife's discomfort with his ability to turn his flesh into living stone – he was frightened by what being stone could make him do and tempt him to do – but there was no harm whatsoever in the vine. It was nourished by him, and nourished him in return with its care and protection. It had never meant him anything but blessing and even now, as he gazed upon it as it climbed the far wall of the stable, its roots digging into the earth as they had once dug into his back, he could see its leaves stretch toward him, beckoning him to let it slip once more into his flesh. She really does not understand this and many other things. Charles grimaced and knew it was true. Kimberly did not understand the vine or the granite body he'd been gifted with. She had only ever understood his Sondeck abilities as another form of magic that let him be very strong and one of the Keep's elite warriors and now knight of the Glen. She does not understand how you miss Ladero. He choked back the sob he had not allowed himself the night before. Malicon lifted his head and snorted curiously at him before returning to his trough and sumptuous grain. In all those months of journey away from his family, how often had he spoke of the great joy he knew was waiting for him back home? How often had he spoken of his Ladero, his son with the Sondeck and the training he yearned to give him? And in his heart he knew he would never have a bond with his other children, no matter how much he truly did love them, as he would with Ladero. Charles shook his head and ground his molars together, claws pressing into his palms. His son was dead. He could not change the past. That was the lesson that he had learned from Marzac – the past could not be changed. Only the future. And he bore the emblems of his future already. He unclenched his paws and lifted a claw to pick at the metal links of his chain mail. He had duties as a knight now and that meant surveying the Narrows to learn their secrets and to determine how best to use the land. It had only been a month and a half since he had been invested, and his duties to the Glen had precluded him from spending as much time learning his fief as he would prefer. At least this week Baron Avery permitted him to do as he wished. But as his claws ran along the smooth rings and his ears noted each clink of metal on metal, his eyes remained upon the vine whose leaves beckoned him closer with a strange sort of urgency. Slowly he brought his mind back to bear on the Wind Children's gift and his wife's discomfort. He would never dream of suffocating his vine beneath a suit of mail, but there was little reason he couldn't slip the vine over his armor as long as the root could sink into the flesh above his tail. Kimberly wouldn't see him until after he returned in the evening and so she didn't have to know. Perhaps, despite herself, she may be right. Marzac used objects to drive your friends apart from those who loved them. Charles had been about to walk toward the vine when that thought came to him. He stopped and narrowed his eyes, glancing back once toward Malicon who was nearly finished with his grains before returning his attention on the vine. Its leaves beckoned and the blossoms turned toward him, opening and closing like grasping hands. Kayla had the swords. He nodded slowly as he recalled the dragon blades, so helpful in their fight against Marzac, being twisted in his friend, the skunk's, mind until they coerced her into surrendering herself to the mad dragon Vissarion. His heart shuddered as he remembered seeing her in Rickkter's chambers, stretched and long, sinuous like a serpent with legs and vicious jaws, with only patches of fur remaining to show her true self. How quickly that which had once been trusted had twisted her mind! James had the bell. Even as the vine's leaves invited him closer, like a harridan's commanding finger, his mind turned to his donkey friend who had been consumed by a cracked bell. It had been forged in Glen Avery by their blacksmith Malloc and had never even traveled to Marzac. Yet through it Marzac had exercised devastating and nearly fatal control over his friend, twisting him to hate those who loved him and save but one stroke he would have killed Charles. One hand lifted to rub at his jaw, which on the coldest of nights ached still, where that bell had cracked the bones. Jessica had the hyacinth. He ran his tongue along the back of his incisors and then through the gaps on either side. As the vine before him moved of its own volition, that hyacinth, in its final moments had done as well aching to embrace Weyden and doom them all. In those precious minutes before Jessica and Weyden had left, Rickkter had pressed them for details; the image of that flower writhing in ravenous hunger haunted him. The hyacinth had been planted to help Jessica manipulate the Curses and in the end it had manipulated her, reducing all of them to children unable to fight back. Kimberly does not understand, but she may be right about the vine. Charles sighed and ground his molars together. The end of the vine detached from the wall and angled toward him. “I'm sorry, my friend. Whether I like it or not I have to listen to my wife.” The vine seemed to struggle even more and for a moment he feared it would uproot itself to ensnare him. Charles wrapped his paw about the hilt of his sword and glared, heart burning. “Do not make me do this. Stay there and do not touch me. I will protect myself.” His threat did not appear to convince the wine which was now stretched across the tree root, over half of its length uncoiled from the stable wall. Charles' scowl flared into a chittering growl as he ripped the sword from its sheath. The screech of metal on metal was so strident that even Malicon popped his head up, ears backed in alarm. “I warned you!” Charles snapped, giving the blade a quick underhanded swing; a cloud of dust erupted before his paws. Stricken as if slapped, the vine recoiled and crouched against the stable wall. Charles exhaled and lowered his snout. “I'm sorry. But I cannot take chances.” He gently returned the sword to its scabbard. He then wrapped his arms around Malicon's neck and pressed his snout against the pony's head. Malicon jerked his head back a little at first but a moment later yielded to the rat's embrace. He ran his fingers and claws through the pony's mane for several seconds. A slight smile touched his snout at last. He stepped back and took a deep breath. “Let's finish getting you ready and go find James. We have a lot of riding ahead of us today.” Malicon stomped his hooves in approval. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>