<html> <body> I suspect folks won't like this bit. Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars III: Descensum (s) Saturday, May 12, 708 CR The pain from his bruises was long past by the time he laid down in bed that evening. The ride back to the Glen had been uneventful and he'd regained his balance even before they'd reached the ponies. He'd barely contained his fury when he saw that his wife had invited Natalie and her son over again. The interloping frog had been playing with his children and his children – his children – were enjoying themselves! At their return Natalie collected her son that they might return home. Kimberly tended his wounds and sponged his fur clean. The bruises were not serious, and the few cuts he had were easily tended. She did note on a few drops of blood on his sleeve, but he professed not to know and she did not press. While he was tended Garigan watched the children who enjoyed the ferret's attempt to tell a story about how he'd rescued their father. That evening James and Baerle put in a brief appearance. Charles listened to the donkey and opossum regale them with all that they had seen in the mountains to the north. Many of the passes that had been snowed and iced over during March were now clear and so they had an easy time navigating even the treacherous paths. The scariest moment had come when a pair of mountain rams had decided to chase them toward a cliff, but a show of magic from one of the younger scouts convinced the rams to run the other way. Otherwise all was quiet on their northern frontier. Like the frogs, both James and Baerle also took their leave, followed by Garigan once the evening hour arrived. They stayed long enough to help feed the children their evening meal but once the little rats had been fed all of his friends departed. Together, Charles and Kimberly put their children to bed and then a short while later retired as well. Charles spoke a little of his knightly duties for the coming week and Kimberly expressed her approval that they would keep him closer to the Glen. He did not ask after the rock about her neck for she wore it beneath her kirtle, but he could see the little lump in the midst of her bodice. He tried to ignore it and for the most part succeeded. All was dark in their bedroom once Kimberly extinguished her witchlight. Charles knew precisely where his clothes were and where anything else that might obstruct his path to the door. So in quiet he waited, listening to his wife's breathing as she lay next to him. His arms rested atop the covers, fingers clasped together over his chest, while the pillow beneath his head splayed his large ears to either side. His whiskers twitched as his incisors tapped against each other. He kept his tail shifted to his right so that the end of it was already brushing the floor in anticipation. Kimberly took her time finding a comfortable position. At first she was on her back as she usually preferred, and then she tossed onto her side, and then a few minutes later she tossed onto her other side, thumping Charles in the leg with her tail beneath the covers, before finally settling onto her back again. Through it all Charles never quivered or budged. He merely waited peering in the dark above, a dark so deep he could not even see his own snout. But his wife's discomfort finally passed and soon she was resting peacefully. Charles waited a few minutes to be certain, then slipped from the covers and gathered his attire. He made no noise in creeping from their bedroom. A little light came through the small windows into their main room and there he donned his clothes, including a dark cloak – from his days among the Longs – that helped hide him while scouting. He pulled the hood over his ears and then crept outside, hugging the shadows where he would not be seen. Glen scouts were some of the best in all the Valley, but Charles was a Sondecki. He kept to the shadows and crossed the commons with measured steps and quick strides. He had one advantage in that the scouts were watching the roads and forests around the Glen and not often the commons which always saw their share of hoof and paw during the day. Not so at night when most had laid down their heads to sleep trusting in the scouts to protect them from enemies without. Charles was not an enemy, neither within or without, but still, he feared being seen and stopped. He had but one thing he must do ere he met Malger and he did not want either James or Garigan to notice. They all suspected him of Marzac's corruption, so anything he did out of the ordinary would be misconstrued. It was best if they just did not know. He crossed the commons without raising any alarms. Charles pulled the cloak more tightly about his middle as he swept from tree to tree, creeping through the darkness as but one more shadow. There was no light in the graveyard; not only would the least sliver of a waning moon not rise until dawn, but the clouds blotted out all the stars. The only light that cast through the trees was the occasional lantern carried by a Glenner on their way home from the Inn or from the brewery after many drinks. Even without the light Charles knew where to find his son's grave. He crept across the earth, skulking on all fours, until his claws reached the familiar stone. He ran his fingers up its cold surface, a familiar surface that he had melded into so many times before. But not this night. Instead he spread his cloak across the earth beneath which his son lay, and pressed his forehead against the stone. His tongue moved to whisper though his snout did not open. And so beneath his breath only a few words passed from snout to stone. “I am coming for you, my Ladero.” These words breathed again and again from his lungs, his heart, and his soul. Tears brimmed in his eyes, one catching in the ruin of his flesh before tumbling to the cross beam of the stone marker. He smeared the tear with his fingers, rubbing it firmly into the stone. He tilted back his snout and planted a kiss upon the marker. Nothing more can be done here. He nodded to himself and slowly eased himself back. They will be watching this place. You must make haste now. He crept back into the shadows and followed along the edge of the commons westward toward the Inn and brewery. Once he was close enough he slipped free of the cloak, folded it over his arms, and calmly walked through the main doors of the brewery taproom. Far too many went in and out of the taproom for anyone to take special notice, but were he to come draped in his cloak he might draw attention to himself. With noble calm and an affected air of conviviality he opened the door and stepped within. The interior of the cave was warmly light with lanterns suspended from the ceiling and a comfortable fire crackling in the hearth. The bruin Lars was pouring drinks for the many Glen scouts who had come to wash away the strain of the day. Charles recognized many of them, but none had gone with him to Marzac or even knew of their fears of that place. A few waved to him and he waved in return, but no words were shared. Instead he passed the long tables with drunken Glenners and proceeded to the owner. “Master Lars, pardon me, but I believe I am expected below.” Lars turned to him and snorted, brown eyes narrowing for a moment. “Sir Matthias, of course. I gave his grace a storage room below the brewing hall that suited your needs. It is not hard to find.” He gave the rat quick instructions for which Charles thanked the bear and proceeded back out into the night. He did not bother donning the cloak as he made his way along the southern face of the hill and calmly walked through the unlocked postern gate of the brewery. The brewing tuns within were far too large for even the mightiest to move, and the mash within too raw for any to attempt drinking, so Lars seldom secured the door. It was only during decanting from tun to barrel for fermentation that the bruin evinced any concern for his precious wares. Confidant and determined he opened the door and stepped within. The air smacked him with an almost palpable blow; sticky warm and breathtakingly humid, with a bite that burned his nose and left his eyes watering. He hastened through the main room, all decorum lost and wholly unconcerned that any might see him – who could, unless their eyes had become inured to the torture? Reaching the far end he pulled open the double doors enough to squeeze through and let them thump closed behind him. The caverns beneath the brewery were partly natural and partly carved out of the stone. They served primarily as storage, in an unchanging environment, for the fermentation of the bruin's numerous brews. During times of attack they also provided the Glenners a secure shelter from which to last out the attack or fight back. There was even a secret passage that emptied out into the mountains, but thankfully they had never need to use it. At least the air within was far less stifling, though was still potent with a mélange of curing scents. Charles descended two flights of short stairs before he found the chamber the bear had offered them. Standing in the doorway watching for him was Malger's servant, the fox Misanthe was had hidden under the marten Noble's chair during Charles' request, and stood silently by that morning when Charles received his answer. Now she was in a more comfortably bipedal form and seemed to glow in a bronze light from within the room. When she saw him she nodded and then disappeared within the room. Charles walked a little faster, but the hall was long and it took him several seconds to reach the chamber. The fox had eased the door so that it was only cracked. He pushed the heavy door open with one hand until it had swung wide, allowing him a view of the room beyond. The room, like everything else, was carved out of the granite hillside. Wooden supports rose along all four walls and crossed the ceiling where a hook was fixed for a lantern. Old storage chests were stacked against the right wall while two pallets with warm quilts were arrayed in the center of the room. A single candle and a censer were set beside the pallets. The room was clean of dust and damp with a fresh smell and a lingering suggestion of wine from the two racks of small casks along the back wall. The more powerful odors were that of the fox who'd stood watch at the door and the marten who stood on the other side of the pallets watching him with a keen eye. The scent of the incense within the censer was the last odor that tickled his sensitive nose but his whiskers told him that what his eyes saw, and they felt, threw the geometry of the room askew. Narrowing his gaze he glowered at the back wall but, after a few seconds of scrutiny he decided that such mysteries would only distract him from his goal so he pushed it aside. Charles took a deep breath. “Good evening, Malger. I am here. What must I do?” Malger motioned for him to enter. “Step inside and lay down on one of the pallets. You will need some place to sleep if you are to enter the dreams. I will be beside you but there is no need for us to touch.” The noble marten gestured to the fox who had stepped away to give him some distance. “Misanthe is here to watch over us as we sleep.” Why would she watch you? “Will we need watching?” Charles asked as he stepped through the doorway. He cast a sidelong glance at the fox, favoring her with the ruined side of his face. Malger's reply was given in a reassuring tone. “Both to ensure we are not disturbed and to wake us should something go wrong.” Should something go wrong? Nothing must be allowed to go wrong! Charles twitched his whiskers and snapped his eyes back to Malger. Anxious, he asked, “Can things go wrong?” Malger nodded, but lifted one hand as if to assure him. “They can, but it is very rare.” He gestured to the fox and offered a smile to the rat that revealed all of his little fangs. “Instead of fearing what might go wrong, take comfort that Misanthe will be here so that you will not take harm should something, however unlikely, go amiss.” Malger lowered his arm and pointed to the pallets at his feet. “Please, lie down and make yourself comfortable and we can begin.” Follow his instructions. Charles cast one more scowl at the far wall before depositing his cloak beside the pallet and then reclining, resting his head on the pillow. He folded his hands over his stomach, lacing the fingers together; he tapped his thumb claws together as his eyes stared up into the ceiling. His ears flicked at the thunk that sounded when Misanthe shut the heavy door and threw the latch. While she snuffed the lanterns, plunging the room into darkness but for that lone candle flame, Malger used a slender reed to light the incense within the censer. Charles was briefly, and disquietingly, reminded of the dark censer that had nearly destroyed them in the belfry the very day of his departure from his home and long journey into the south. A long journey, a long time away from family with no farewells and so much loss. But what was lost can be found. One journey is ended, a new one begins. The thought comforted him and he stared into the weird shadows glimmering across the uneven stone above him, suggesting creatures and people in a strange sort of play of light. The rat fancied he saw herds of deer through the forest, rats dancing in the night, and the blaring of a horn splitting a stormy sky. He watched with whimsy cavorting rats take up the chase with a wild hunt that leaped the moon that sunk into a river-carved gorge. And then a thin trail of smoke rose into view and his whiskers twitched with the strangely sweet incense it carried. He breathed deep and relaxed. As the censer began to send thin tendrils of sweet and heady smoke into the air, Malger picked up his flute and blew across the opening, sounding an experimental tone. It hung in Charles' hearing long after the musician had drawn the flute from his lips. “Gaze into the flame.” Malger's voice became softer, more smooth; a lilting baritone that seemed to have lost the animal churr that Charles had grown not to notice in the last half decade. Now, he noticed its absence. “Listen to the melody I play and let your mind drift, but think of me as you drift; it matters not the thought, but that it will be a beacon that draws me to you within the Dream.” Charles stretched slowly upon the pallet, comfortable padded against the unyielding solidity of the rough-hewn stone floor. He turned his head to gaze upon the unwavering glow of the candle that stood between them. Malger was seated opposite him, legs crossed, his form cast in shadows and highlights beyond the flame. “Let the flame lead to calm, the calm to its center,” Malger intoned in that low, lyrical voice like a father's lullaby shushing a child toward sleep. Charles felt his body relaxing; these exercises he was familiar with and fell into almost without conscious thought. He fell into the calm, but his center seemed elusive; shadowed away and blocked from grasp. After mere moments he felt that frustration melt away and simply relaxed. His clasped hands rested upon his stomach, his thumbs rubbing against each other very slowly. Nothing else, not even the tip of his tail curled up on the quilt between his feet, twitched. His chest rose and fell with slow measured breaths to show he was alive but that was all. His whiskers didn't even flick as the incense drifted over his sensitive nose. Malger began to trace out a slow, serpentine tune that coiled around an elusive center, a sympathetic melody on a minor key echoing the music in a fading echo. Its contour was of the gentle caress of waves upon a hull and the ever-shifting dunes of his desert home. This was no sweet inducement to sleep for babes, but a sultry enchantment, suggestive without revealing anything at all. The rat's eyes remained alert for a few minutes, but the combination of the unwavering flame, the hazy incense, and the slow, hypnotic melody of the flute drooped his eye lids and relaxed his frame. The incense, sweet and sharp in his nostrils, lifted his mind away from all concerns. Within moments he was not in the caves beneath Glen Avery. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>