<html> <body> --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars IV: Infernus (d) Saturday, May 12, 708 CR “What way is that?” Charles asked, turning from the prairie dog to the Åelf. The pearl gray being smiled in a subtle but gentle way. “There are two additional ways to reach beyond. We are in what is known as the Axis. The heavens above and hells below, each realm being the demesnes of a particular aedra and daedra lord. The Axis serves as a means by which they harness spiritual energy and maintain their power. The Axis also serves as a way that they and their minions can easily move from one realm to the next.” Craig nodded. “So I was told. But you cannot use the Axis. They guard all the entrances.” “Their minions do guard the Axis and it would be very foolish to attempt to use it. But there is another way to pass from one realm to the next. Charles has already done so and I followed him here. At certain places in each realm, there are bridges that span the gap between them. Passages that siphon spiritual energies from lesser sources, that never passes through the Axis. Energy gained through lies, if you will, which sustains the darker spirits of the lower Hells whose worshipers are far fewer than those of the Aedra. If you can find one end of the bridge you can reach the next realm, either ascending to the heavens or descending through the hells. Understandably, there are more leading down than up. It does mean we must travel great distances in each realm to find the bridge. And there is no guarantee that a bridge will not be guarded.” “Could we use these bridges to escape this place?” Craig asked, a curious wonder touching his voice. “Not in great numbers,” Qan-af-årael admitted with a measure of regret, reserved but real. “Your night mistress will not take well to her livestock escaping. And the only bridge I know to enter the Dreamlands will be guarded by now. Nocturna knows the passage and will be waiting on the other side, ill-disposed at Charles' chicanery.” “But how does this take us Beyond?” Charles pressed, shifting about and rubbing his tail where it had been “The only ways Beyond are from the highest heaven and the lowest hell. Nocturna guards the way up. If you wish to go beyond, the only way is to go down.” “Down?” Craig asked, his chittering voice rising an incredulous glare. “Down where it is an even worse than this place? Charles, think! You cannot risk that!” He turned and stared at the Åelf for several seconds. Qan-af-årael's regard was calm and assured. There was no suggestion of fear in his angular features nor diffidence in his golden eyes. Charles felt a subtle affirmation in his friend's countenance. A faint smile stretched the rat's snout and cheeks; with this he returned to answer the prairie dog's admonition. “I can and I must. If it is the only way then it is my way. Qan-af-årael is powerful even in death in ways we cannot imagine. I will be as safe as I can be here while in his company. I hope that I can have your help as well to reach the next bridge. I have no idea where it might be.” “It is not far,” Qan-af-årael noted with a faint pinching of his lips. “I can see it in a way though I fear there will be danger to reach it as we must cross a plain.” “The plain?” Craig stammered. Charles blinked. “You know of it? What is it?” “A place too dangerous to trod. If you think the beasts you've seen here in the forest are terrifying, then you cannot imagine what makes the plain its home.” “If we are quick and subtle we should be able to reach the bridge with the denizens of the plain ignorant of our passage. We are small and not worth their regard.” Craig shook his head and turned once more to Charles. There was actual agony in his expression as he held out his arms. “Charles, please, reconsider. I have never heard tell of anyone returning from the plain. It is better to spend eternity hiding in these holes and lightless forests than to dare the dazzle of a cloudless night for one twinkling star on that derelict plain!” He could see his dead friend's anguish and for a moment felt some pity for him. But he steeled his reserve against such temptations and shook his head. “I am resolved to do this, Craig. You can either help me or not, but I would prefer your company a little while longer.” “You are so stubborn!” Craig growled beneath his breath and shook his head, glaring down his snout. “I will not help you destroy yourself. Not I. If you intend to cross the plain then you must do it on your own.” Charles stood and stretched. “Then I suppose we shall take our leave of you, supposing we have your permission to do that!” He asked, leveling a glower at his fellow rodent Keeper. Craig reached out a hand and grabbed the rat by his tunic. “Charles, don't you understand? If you are killed here, your soul will not escape the daedra. You will be theirs to torment for as long as they wish. Do you understand this?” His angry words ended in a breathless hiss, the gaze in his dark eyes almost desperate with panic that his old friend realize the risks he already knew well. Charles rested his hand atop the other, his claws pressing beneath each finger to pry them loose from his tunic. “I understand and I will risk. You cannot keep me here, and you certainly cannot keep Qan-af-årael here.” Craig's face contorted with anger for a moment before the rictus melted and the prairie dog could do aught but release him. “Very well, if that is your wish. Before I show you the way, I must ask one thing of you, because once you leave this cavern it will not be safe to speak.” Charles nodded for his fellow Long to continue. “How are my wife and daughters? And... is Caroline all right?” The rat's expression softened, and this time it was he who placed a paw on his friend's shoulder. “They are all well. Caroline was rescued and recovered and she visits your wife and daughters every week. I'm told the eldest just changed into a prairie dog like you.” “Anna... a prairie dog like me?” “She even has a little sable stripe down her back and tail.” Craig's eyes brimmed with tears even as a smile of hope and warmth filled him. “My little... thank you, Charles.” He took a deep breath to steady himself, even wiping his cheeks and eyes with the back of his wrist. Once dry, those dark eyes fixed on the rat. “I will gather some of the others and we will show you both a secret way toward the plain. We will go no further than that. I can only hope that you are as fast and as unregarded as you claim.” ---------- Charles and Qan-af-årael remained in the little cave with leaf and feather mattresses. The rat played with the blue light dangling from the ceiling while they waited. He could make it curl around his claws but no matter what he did to it he never felt the slightest sensation of heat. He wondered if he could convince Kimberly to conjure a blue witchlight, and for a moment he felt a surge of love well in his heart. Her arms slid beneath his and her head pressed against his chest. Her warmth, her delicate scent, her inner strength, her very humility, all of it washed across him as if she were actually there. And then he felt Qan-af-årael's steadying hand and the vision broke. “Your friend is returning.” Craig and five human men stopped at the entrance to the little cave and waved for them to follow. Rat and Åelf were lithe on their feet, offering only a cursory glance at the array of bridges, lights and ladders filling the cavern. They stopped before an ominous dark hole leading away in a new direction and the prairie dog put a finger to his snout. “Charles, these are the last words you will hear us speak. If you have anything to ask, do so now because you will not speak again in this realm.” He shook his head and swallowed. “I do not think there is anything I need. I trust you will not lead us awry.” “Much as I wish to deter you from your course, I will not lead you falsely.” His shoulders rose and fell with a weary sigh. “Very well then, stay with us and say nothing.” The eight of them plunged into the dark passage at a brisk pace. After the cool blue light of the cavern, the tunnel felt oppressive and complete in its darkness. Charles felt a twinge of claustrophobia and could not help but recall the bleakness of the tunnel beneath Metamor that took them all the way to the forested hills north of Glen Avery. At least then they had brought lights to illumine the pearl black walls. Here he had only the sensation of those around him brought to him by his whiskers to guide him. But his eyes adjusted after a few minutes, and soon he recognized the overhanging walls of roots, dirt and stone as much the same they had seen on their way down into the caverns. After a time that may have been five or fifty minutes, they emerged from the tunnel into a dense forest of oak and beech intermingled with nose-tickling pine. All of them tensed and wrapped their hands about axes and heavy clubs. Charles wrapped one hand about the shrunken haft of his Sondeshike tucked into his tunic as he warily glanced above and to every side. The perpetual gloom of the night mistress's demesnes had returned and with it he felt his tongue fix fast to the roof of his mouth. Not a murmur would pass the rat's lips while they remained here. He could only hope that the bridge was not far away. Craig led them through a series of winding hills and down a small slope, staying always within a little cleft that protected them on either side. Charles sniffed the air afraid that the five-headed monster would be waiting to ambush them, but he never detected that sweet odor nor any others save the prickling of the trees. And where the trees of Glen Avery felt safe and comforting, these felt ominous, as if they resented the passage of anything at their feet. When the cleft finally opened out and the hills stopped, Craig and the other humans did as well. Craig offered Charles a few scouting signs and the rat knew that this was as far as they would go. Charles signed that he understood before clasping the prairie dog one last time. Craig returned the gesture with a firm and determined grin, holding Charles by the shoulders at arm's length for a moment. With a smile he nodded his head slowly for his old friend to go in peace before incongruously sketching a brief sign of the Tree upon his own breast to wish Charles well. Without a word or a whisper of sound he and the humans all melted back into the shadows within the cleft, wary eyes ever watching above. Together, Charles and Qan-af-årael continued in the direction his friend had gestured. The trees continued at their lofty, impenetrable height for several minutes more before coming to an abrupt end. Even the gloom of darkness seemed to lift, offering them a view that stretched for miles before them. And so too did the plain, vast and endless and completely flat, it stretched from the boundary of wood until consumed by the darkness in the distance. Charles turned to the Åelf who appeared to be concentrating, as if his eyes could pierce not just shadow but earth and rock as well. The moment lasted only a few seconds before the Åelf offered Charles an affirming nod, angular features betraying nothing of what he felt. As one they stepped out onto the plain, their strides purposeful and their aim sure. Tall blades of grass rose up on all sides to the rat's waist, and its velvet touch made his tail shudder with a chill. The earth beneath their feet was soft as if it had rained a few days before. After only a few minutes of walking Charles glanced behind them to see that the forest was only a smear on the horizon. If he stared above them he could discern a blanket of clouds, but all else was lost in the darkness. How anything at all grew here he neither wanted to nor could he fathom. The only thing that remained different in the sea of grass where every blade looked the same as all the rest was his friend. He walked as closely as he could to the Åelf. They traveled this way for some time without sight, sound, or scent of anything else on the plain with them. Charles had no way of knowing how long it was except that it felt far longer than their journey from the caverns to the edge of the forest. His body ached in strange ways, as if his muscles were sore though he was in no need of rest. He continued to put one paw before the other, tail curled close to his back to keep it from brushing against the grass, and hoped they'd reach the bridge soon. By the time it started they could see nothing but the plain in all directions. Whatever sense that Qan-af-årael had to find the bridge led them inexorably forward, though what direction forward was Charles had no idea. He dare not leave the ancient one's side for even a moment lest he become lost in a field of grass in which every direction looked exactly the same. And just as the paranoia of an endless sea of grass began to burrow into his heart, he felt a faint tremble in the ground. The first few he dismissed as the fluttering of his heart. But its pace did not match the beat within his breast like a fist jabbed between his lungs; it was slower, heavier, and felt altogether distant and separate. It pressed through the callused flesh of his long toes and narrow feet with a single broad pulse, rising up through his legs, hips, chest, head, until it rebounded from the tips of his ears back down to vibrate every scraggly hair growing from his tail. A few seconds later, its energy spent, the pulse would come again but with greater vigor. It was getting closer. Qan-af-årael touched the rat on the shoulder as they walked and then extended his arm ahead of them. He pointed at something in the distance and Charles squinted as he tried not to dwell on the ever-growing thrum of the earth beneath them. In every direction he saw only the tall grass swaying with a wind he could not feel. But where the Åelf pointed he saw something gray smearing the horizon as if they were nearing some structure that rose up from the plain. The bridge? With another jolt beneath his paws, Charles stepped faster than before, pushing the grass aside with his hands in his anxiety. Qan-af-årael matched his pace and then resumed his position just ahead to lead them both by whatever invisible arrow he followed. The trembling of the earth carried with it a sullen echo now, as of something impossibly heavy. Charles turned his ears to listen for it, all the while keeping his eyes on the gray something ahead of them. What was before them grew in size as they continued to move faster. But louder still the footfalls coming toward them. After a minute Charles felt convinced that whatever it was approached from their left. He turned his head that direction for a moment and immediately wished he hadn't. In the distance still and wrapped in shadows so that he could make out nothing but an outline were two legs so large that even the redwoods they climbed through were but saplings in comparison. The legs rose up into the gloom and there the rat could see nothing but a senseless shifting of line and contour. Shapeless and amorphous yet with mass beyond reckoning, whatever this abomination was, it headed straight for them. Gasping and nearly choking as he tried to catch his breath, Charles grabbed Qan-af-årael's sleeve and gestured wildly with his left arm at the perfidious horror. The Åelf glanced that way, and the gray of his face blanched. They ran. The gray mass to which they ran grew before them, spreading out in a wide arc before them though still distant. The legs strode with unerring malevolence, thundering with each step so that the ground now shook and threatened to tumble them over. Charles felt queasy from the almost rolling lurch of the earth as he tried to stay upright and on course. He wanted to avert his eyes from the doom stalking them, but with hapless perversity his left eye ever trailed to those gargantuan legs. The outline of their shape had at first seemed smooth at a great distance, but as they neared the rat could see that they were anything but. Almost liquefied in their peculiar shape, they flowed and gibbered as if composed of thousands of gaping mouths, opening to moan and ooze, before slipping shut with nebulous almost turgid insouciance. Those maws heaved and spewed mucous, murmuring obsequious and insane slobbering cries. The only solid thing he could see on those legs was the black, cloven hooves which were drenched in the leprous puss squishing out of each suppurating rent in its rubbery flesh. Charles ran as fast as his legs allowed him. The gray smear ahead of them took on structure and soon Charles was able to discern its shape. Rising a short distance into the sky it appeared to be an ordered collection of stone slabs each over a hundred paces in length on their long side and twenty paces on their short. These were layered together cross-ways to create a large stepped pyramid that rose at least fifty feet into the sky. It may have been higher but the gloom was too deep that far up for the rat to see clearly. Qan-af-årael guided them around to the right, one hand outstretched but never touching the stone. The towering beast was now so close that Charles did stumble with every one of its steps. He could hear more than just that thunderclap of each hoof striking the ground and flattening the grass. Above the length of its legs where his eyes could not see he heard the yammering palpitations of its pitiless mouths and something more. It sounded like the sliding of fish-like blubber over one atop another as if the whole upper body were a writhing and shapeless mass. And it was a mass that Charles was thankful disappeared behind the stone pyramid as they raced around to the right side. Qan-af-årael stopped abruptly halfway along the length of an otherwise unremarkable slab of stone. Charles felt an inchoate desire to plunge himself into the protected depths of stone, but a horrible vision of his substance trapped with only to be slobbered for aeons by profane tentacled evils slaughtered the nascent thought. The Åelf bent toward one section of the stone and extended his arms, fingers tracing invisible runes in the air as his eyes narrowed. Charles clutched to his robes like a frightened child to his mother as the beast began to move around the pyramid. His legs felt like jelly, and it was only the Sondeck that kept him from falling into a pile and quivering like a feral rat. He gasped aloud when above them the gloom parted like a rent in fabric. The clouds broken asunder and the sparkling blue light of stars danced above, bringing with it a moon's illumination across the pyramid and the field of grass. Invisible before, runes of a particularly loathsome sort, suggestive of violence and blood, reflected that pale light all across the stone slabs in a profusion that scattered the remaining gloom for miles around. Charles chanced a glance upward, stunned and blinded by the radiance, and then shrieked, shrinking in on himself with Metamor's curse to make himself a normal rat. His tunic, breeches, and cape grew loose as he shrank inch by inch away from the horror now revealed in full. Rising to a titanic height lost amidst the remaining clouds, the legs, a sickly pale hue, were joined to a writhing mass of tentacles each of which seemed to be fashioned from smaller interwoven tentacles. Now that it was leaning over them he could smell the charnal miasma of unearthed graves. Two of the tentacles slid down across the stones, leaving a trail of mucus, before pressing into the ground and withering the grass, sliding with a gasping, sucking sound toward them. Their width would pulverize them before smothering them in its grip. With luck they would be dead before they were squeezed to jelly and smeared into the gaping mouths drooling a chalky puss. Insensible from fear, the rat shrank down as if he could make himself small enough to be of no notice. Another tentacle slithered its way down the pyramid of evil light, its tip, a corpuscular amalgamation of little mouths all opening and spluttering, aimed for them without err. A hand grasped Charles on the back and thrust him forward toward a yawning opening within the stone slab. A hideous gibbering peal erupted above them before the darkness swallowed them whole. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>