<html> <body> --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars IV: Infernus (f) Saturday, May 12, 708 CR The rat saw no more than that before Qan-af-årael pulled him back down. The Åelf pushed him downward and leaned over, pressing their foreheads together as before. Be careful, Charles. We do not want to be seen. That's a Keeper they're torturing! I know. But listen to what they say. Listen, how? Even as he thought the question, the various clicks and chirps that could be heard even through the Keeper's howling anguish suddenly seemed full of words. And not just single words, but entire sentences laid atop one another like quilts on a bed. The words felt clipped and precise, offered each as an assessment bereft of emotional touch. Cold and uncaring, they betrayed a detached inhumanity that was in some ways worse than the clicks or their appearance. The progression of the disease has not affected the projection of the subject's larynx. The subject displays control over volume but can no longer produce discernible sounds. The collapse and failure of the lungs will proceed once all tone has been lost. Notice the manner in which the subject attempts to crawl. The distinct limp in its rear left limb indicates a possible source of necrosis. A sample will be necessary to be certain. I concur, a sample will be necessary to be certain. Before we proceed with the sample, notice the slight protuberance on the subject's back above the tail. It has attempted to hide this from us by turning away from us, but a spasm of pain followed the application of pressure to the hips. Observe. The Keeper howled in renewed grief, a pitch that made Charles tighten his eyes. The protuberance is quite real. I suspect that it indicates a new direction for the disease. Normally such growths would appear on the rib cage first. Could there be an abnormality in the subject's biology that would produce such anomalous behavior? We will require a sample to be certain, and a thorough test of the chest area to ensure that no protuberances aren't hidden by the coat of fur. The best indication will be the rictus of pain and howl we witnessed a moment ago when the tumor on the back was distended. Let us proceed then with haste. Charles found his paw wrapping about his Sondeshike. The cool metal felt good in his palm, and the coursing of power between flesh and weapon invigorated him. He trembled beneath Qan-af-årael's arms, eager to break theirs. The screams continued, sometimes muted and tired, other times refreshed and with such an exquisite peal that the rat began to weep in frustration. The advance of the disease has entered into the rib cage. The reaction of the subject indicates several areas of intense localized pain which can only be caused by the growth of tumors from within the marrow of each rib. I postulate that at our next observation they will have fully developed and the subject will be incapable of touching its chest without crippling agony. We will need to be certain because the infestation of the ribs cannot proceed without the concomitant consumption of the lungs. Agreed. A regenerative will be required in order to check certain advances of the disease so that these new developments can be more fully explored. Administer oral regenerative but isolate the area of the back where we observed the anomalous protuberance. Charles finally quivered enough to break his connection with the Åelf. “Enough!” he hissed through the holes he'd chewed in his cloak. No sooner was the word out of his muzzle came his regret. For the clicking and chirping stopped and the footfalls, bizarrely common and human-sounding, resumed, but with greater urgency and in their direction. Charles glanced at the Åelf but Qan-af-årael only appeared more determined, his normally peaceful countenance radiating both a calm assurance and a bitter resolution. Charles tightened his grip on his Sondeshike while looking to see if there was anywhere they could flee. The last place he wanted to begin a fight against strange enemies was in a corner. As the almost rhythmic clicking and footfalls grew closer, Charles realized that they were more in front of him than to their left. And so he slipped out from beneath the Åelf's touch and crept around behind the wall toward the left. His steps made no noise, even as his tail uncurled from his lap and his cloak fell from his jaws. And though he feared these beasts could hear things beyond his ears, they did not seem to change direction. Qan-af-årael followed behind him. Charles paused at the edge of the wall for only a moment before dashing across the open space toward the next pit and protective wall. The clicking-things turned as one toward him and moved with greater intensity. Charles chanced a look behind him and saw his Åelf protector remaining behind, long-fingered hands crafting something invisible between them. If Charles was to be distraction, then he would distract. The rat leaped up into the air, unleashing his Sondeshike to its full length, and striking the tip against the wall. He expected a shattering of stone. All he received was a small blossom of sparks and a resounding, but hollow-sounding, thunk as of a child striking the stone of a wall with a bar of pot-metal. The insect creatures turned toward him, stretching out all eight of their limbs and waving their mandibles. At twenty paces distant, he saw that they were easily twice his height and more, whose long legs were actually jointed backward at such an angle that if they stood up straight they would have gained another eight feet in height. A swollen, greasy yellow abdomen hung between those legs, the end of which oozed a puss-white miasma that trailed along behind them, drying into the floor like wax. The creatures paused for one moment when they saw him before bending their legs down further and leaping into the air with the unexpected, and startling, speed of fleas leaping from a hound. Charles dove to the side, rolling quickly with all the speed of the Sondeckis, and slashed up and back, where the monstrosities would come down, as he tumbled expertly to his paws. The insects crunched into the ground only a few feet behind him and the deadly steel of his Sondeshike whacked hollowly when one of the insects batted his swing aside with one of its arms. Spittle from the frothing mandibles stung his face as it hove over him, a breaker towering over the shore a moment before falling in a crush of water and foam. Charles dashed further into the room between two of the pits. He half turned and began spinning the Sondeshike hand over hand so it would form an impenetrable disk. Keeping that at his side while he ran caused his steps to turn inward, but he had no time to fret as the monsters leaped again. One landed directly ahead of him and the rat bounced off the bulbous abdomen, the Sondeshike clattering from his hands. The steel did not ring with the bell-like purity Charles knew; it rattled as if it were a bar of mere tin, skittering to rest against the lip of a pit nearby. He felt sharp claws grasp his arms, shoulders, sides, and legs, lifting him into the air. He struggled and lashed with his tail but no other limb could he move. He screamed as the insect-thing lifted him toward its mandibles. But the jagged saw-toothed face did not grasp him. Rather the long antennae brushed across his face and chest, sending a shiver racing through his flesh and fur. Charles screamed louder, throat raw in moments from both anger and fear. The other insect ran its limbs across his pants and cloak, rending with care and precision, never once biting into the flesh beneath. Charles gasped, yanked, tugged at each of his limbs and swung his tail from side to side, trying anything to get himself from their grasp. Even his Sondeck availed him nothing in the monstrous grip of the gardeners. Their obsidian hexagonal eyes glimmered with the satisfaction of having a new subject on which to perform their grisly contamination. And then a child's voice cried in the distance and a blaze of light seared through the head of the insect slicing him free of his garments. A putrid green ichor gushed through the vertical gap indenting the middle of its head. The eight limbs shook, all their strength gone, before the body collapsed into a heap, toppling into the nearest pit. A forlorn, bovine low sounded briefly from below before a heavy crunch and wet splatter brought it to a final end. The other insect held onto Charles with four of its limbs, one each on his wrists and ankles which he pulled until his shoulders and hips lanced with pain. With its four other limbs it began drawing out spectral objects that glimmered with power. They seemed a mix of sickle and sword, and with these it slashed and deflected bolts of energy erupting from the opposite side of the chamber. Charles could barely see any of it as his snout was pressed into the chitinous armor of its thorax. He gagged on the scent of filth and putrefaction that lathered its iridescent green armor. Just as he was certain his limbs would all be dislocated, Charles turned his ears at the sound of a fiery scream. He felt a rush of heat against his arms, legs and tail, and then all of the beast's limbs went limp. Charles collapsed on the ground and rolled out of the way as the monstrous insect crumpled, a blue fire consuming it from behind. The abdomen erupted in a fountain of molten sinew before its entire form caved inward and smoldered a foul smelling smoke. Charles grabbed his Sondeshike from where it had fallen and felt intense relief that neither he nor it had been touched by the mucus lathering both insects. His trousers were a ruin with one leg cut off just above his knee and the other cut into strips halfway up his thighs. The cloak was in better shape, but the corners had both been cleaved through, leaving it open at his paws unless he crouched. He swept up what pieces he could in one arm, and then looked around the chamber for the Åelf and whoever else had come to his aid. Qan-af-årael still had a blue nimbus around his arms as he stepped out from their hiding place, a look of damaged serenity present in his eyes. A faint smile touched his angular cheeks when he saw that Charles stood, and then they looked past him toward the other end of the chamber. Following his gaze, Charles stared in both relief and amazement at a group of six men and a single boy checking in each of the pits as they moved through the chamber. They wore scraps of clothes no larger than the pieces Charles grasped in one hand except for the boy who was garbed in pleasant but plain raiment adjusted for his small stature. He felt a strange awe when he recognized the boy. “Wessex!” He called, his voice hollow after his screams. The boy looked at him and nodded, but waved a hand to bid him wait. At the urging of two of the other men leaning over one of the pits, Wessex rushed over, drew arcane symbols in the air, and concentrated, lifting his arms up over his head. Charles marveled as up from the pit floated an old woman riddled with vicious red sores and black shriveled hands and feet. Her hair, white and scraggly, looked smeared with excrement. She was naked and for this the men averted their gaze while they gently grasped her arms and eased her weightless body to the floor. Wessex and one of the other men bent over her and whispered little incantations. A white glow proceeded from their hands that settled across the woman's flesh. The boils and pustules whitened and sealed, disappearing into whole flesh. The black necrosis in her hands and feet faded, the skin and sinew taking on life again. Even her age seemed to retreat as if it had been a foul air cast out by a billowing wind. Charles gaped in wonder, and then approached, offering the scraps of cloth cut free from his pants and cloak. One of the men, a youth of no more than nineteen, smiled and took the cloths from him, gently tying them across the woman to give her some modesty back. Wessex and the other healer continued their work for a moment more before turning to another pit from which one of their number beckoned. Charles reached out and grasped the boy on the shoulder. “Wessex! It's me! Charles Matthias.” Wessex looked up the short distance to him and smiled. Though his body was ten years in appearance, he was still very short for those years. “I know it is you, Charles. But we have to rescue as many as we can from this place before other gardeners come. Or worse, the master himself.” The boy's eyes narrowed and he added, before shaking off the rat's hand. “You should not be here. I can see you still live. What they would have done to you... you dare not imagine. Stay and help us if you will, but please do not hinder us.” Charles nodded and followed after the boy. Qan-af-årael walked toward them though kept at a subtle distance. In this pit they found an older man with black pustules protruding from his body. He lay naked, curled into a ball weeping, though Charles could hear nothing of what transpired in the pit. But once Wessex and his companion had levitated him past the opening the choked cries and whimpering filled his ears and heart. “Do not touch him,” Wessex cautioned with a glance at the rat. “The sickness they torture him with spreads easily. Give us a moment to heal it.” Wessex and the other healer bent over the quivering, suffering man and began their incantations. Charles stepped back several paces, blinked, and then moved down along the pits, glancing into each to see if he could find the other Keeper. Most of them just contained animals of various sizes, with horses and cows being the largest, to sheep, goats, pigs, and dogs as the smallest. He saw only a couple of other humans and past these he ran with a sickness in his heart after making sure one of the other human rescuers noticed him pointing them out. Despite his best efforts, running from pit to pit, he could not find the Keeper he'd heard. Charles swore under his breath as he turned away from yet another pustule-laden sheep and then almost ran snout first into Qan-af-årael's chest. He gasped and bowed his head in apology. When he looked back up at the Åelf, he noticed a warning in his golden eyes. “We cannot linger here any longer. Something is coming.” Charles blinked and lifted his ears. He heard nothing other than Wessex and the other healer. “But there are so many who need help here.” “Not even your friend can save them all. Look how many they are and how desperate. If you wish to pass through this place without becoming one of its victims, you must not linger any longer. You have helped save one, but you cannot save any more.” “He's right,” Wessex announced as he climbed to his feet. The older man crumpled on the floor was free of his sores and taking short, shallow breaths as he flexed his muscles. The other healer wrapped one of the last of Charles' scraps across his waist to give him the dignity of a loincloth. “Something is coming. One of the chief gardeners. None of us can be here when it arrives. We have only minutes.” He narrowed his eyes and stared at Qan-af-årael. “I do not know how you know these things. You don't belong here either.” “I am guarding and guiding Charles. He is the reason we are here.” Charles grimaced. “My son was taken from me and I'm here to find him and bring him back if I can. If not, then I am here to say goodbye. Either way, I must find him. He is Beyond, which means we need to find the bridge to the next realm.” Wessex shook his head. “I do not know what you mean by bridge or next realm. Beyond... the gardeners are very cautious to deny anyone that surcease. They will keep you at the point of death for thousands of years if they can. As if years mean anything here.” He turned to his companions and waved them closer. “We have to leave now. Tell any you see on our way that we are sorry and will be back for them soon. Let us take these two to safety.” Wessex wasted no more words, and none of his companions offered them anything other than a hard glance. Charles and Qan-af-årael fell in behind them as they headed back the way they'd come. Charles turned his ears at a faint whumping sound coming from the other direction. The chief gardener? He shuddered and kept walking. They reentered the stone passage and continued down the other fork. It turned to the right before opening out on another chamber. This was filled with small cages stacked one atop the other. Little creatures like mice, moles, rats, and birds were housed therein each in a state of distress; only a few showed interest in them. Through this chamber they passed unmolested and came to another similar chamber but with larger cages, this filled with animals more the size of cats and ferrets as well as many more that he did not recognize. After two more similar rooms they came to one with more pits. But these pits were thirty or forty paces across and housed very large animals. Charles felt his heart stabbed over and over as he saw the sufferings of elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and even large reptiles like alligators, pythons, and fantastic shapes he didn't even recognize. At the center of the room Qan-af-årael put a hand on Charles' shoulder and bid him stop. The rat let out a sudden squeak and chided himself for letting his anxiety get the better of him. Wessex turned as well, brow furrowed in a very child-like way. “We cannot stop here,” he hissed between his teeth. “The bridge lies that way,” Qan-af-årael gestured to a passage leading off from the right. “I can feel it now.” Wessex followed his arm and sucked in his breath. One of the other men with him made some sign to ward off evil. “That path leads toward the master's gardens. It is very dangerous. Few of us ever escape there.” “It is where I must go,” Charles said with a sigh. “I am glad to see you are... faring well, Wessex.” “As well as the souls of the dead can fare, you mean?” The boy snorted, but a real smile emerged on his lips. “Thank you, Charles. I'm sorry we did not always get along, but...” He shook his head and rubbed his hands together. “Just one question I have before you go. How are Jessica and my other students?” “Jessica is married to Weyden and very, very happy. Your other students are all learning well enough at the guild from what I hear. But Jessica, she speaks of you from time to time. If they have a son she wants to name him after you. You were like a father to her.” “And she a daughter to me,” Wessex replied, his smile warm and deeper than any child could profess. “Thank you, Charles. May your Eli protect you in all the dark places you must walk.” Charles put a paw on Wessex's shoulder and then the two of them embraced. “Thank you,Wessex. Rescue every one you can. I will tell Jessica that you are well.” “Do not let her come after me,” Wessex cautioned sternly. “I am dead and this is where I must serve. Good bye, Charles.” “Good bye, Wessex.” Gently, Qan-af-årael turned Charles away from the others and guided him toward the portal on the right through which they would find the bridge. Charles turned his head slightly to watch Wessex and his companions help the woman and old man on their path. He hoped they'd find their safety. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>