<html> <body> --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars IV: Infernus (k) Saturday, May 12, 708 CR When Charles stepped off the end of the bridge into the infinitesimal gap he felt a curious stillness greet him on the other side. He blinked and twitched his whiskers, ears lifted for any sound, tail turning behind him in expectation of his guardian's arrival. The realm about him was washed out and gray, with a featureless plain stretching in every direction. The sky was leaden and dark. The ground was cold as on a night in early Spring when the mountain slopes had yet to thaw. There was a soft hush in the air as of a gentle autumn breeze catching at dead leaves. What few scents he tasted were muted. Everything around him felt cold. What he did notice, unlike Klepnos's realm, was that in the distance he could see people huddled together. They were too far away for his eyes to discern any details, but their general shape was unmistakeable. For a brief moment he felt heartened to see other people. And then he recalled where he was and shuddered from more than the chill in the air. These people were all dead; and the further he descended in this pagan realm the worse these people would be. A warming presence filled the space behind him and Charles turned toward his protector and guide. Qan-af-årael stood tall as a sapling with folded hands before him, golden eyes surveying the sullen landscape. His gaze lowered to the rat and a subtle smile played across his cheeks before a graver cast overtook his already gray features. In that barren landscape with oppressively colorless sky what few pigments remained to the Åelf were drained as well. He set one hand on Charles' shoulder and the solid assuring presence of the Åelf filled not just his senses but his mind as well. Do not use your voice unless you have no other choice. The very air will steal your warmth. It will steal it anyway, but you should not hasten it. Charles nodded to show ascent and concentrated his thoughts in reply. I have felt colder than this. How much worse will it get? We have been here but moments. It will never warm and will grow much, much colder ere we find the bridge. Qan-af-årael removed his hand but the presence within him remained. It felt as if he were not alone inside his flesh, but that through the sharing of minds there were two within him, himself and a great companion in whom he could trust to guide and protect him. There seemed to the rat some sequacious impulse inherent to the connection, as of an inchoate bearing from a compass that still spun. Insouciant, he turned from the Åelf, and gestured with the sweep of one arm. Which way should we go? Everything appears the same here. Cold and gray, and yet tinged with the blue of ice, he almost added. In this place I do not believe it matters. All directions lead to Kilyarnie. Charles wrapped his arms about his chest and grimaced. He did not need to think the question for it to be clear. But the ancient one's thoughts were no comfort. His voice felt brittle in his mind, as if it were cool iron. It will not make sense until we are there. For now you must start moving and keep moving. Do not stop walking for any reason. Charles nodded, glanced around at the vast gray plain, hesitating only a moment before picking the direction ahead of him. He raised one long-toed paw, stepped forward, and set it down again. No sharp knives or strange sensations met him. Only the barrenness of permafrost, the slight crunching of frozen ground beneath his weight, was there to greet him. His other paw lifted and swung forward past its sibling to crush more of the barren earth, leaving an impression of long toes and narrow sole behind. The first two steps felt tentative, but thereafter his pace quickened and Charles soon strode across the cold plain without hesitation. His cloak billowed around him at first, but he quickly grasped it with either hand and pulled it tight around him to keep what warmth he still felt within. His tail he swung around his side until it could be looped about his middle; it hurt to have it twisted so much, but it was better than having it freeze. His toes and ears hurt from the cold after only a few minutes of walking. In mid-step he pulled the cowl of his cloak up over his head and felt some relief. The sides of the cowl narrowed his vision; the blur of his whiskers and snout were ever before him. His breath misted in the air and clung to his whiskers. He flicked them from time to time when he felt that mist turning to ice. The rat shivered and kept walking. Qan-af-årael was hidden by the cowl, but he could hear the crush of his boots on the ground to his right. The cold, already bitter and deeper than when he had emerged from the bridge, muted his scent, and there was a subtle disconnect in his presence, as if he were both at his side and some distance away. His mental being however felt nearer still; even though his thoughts did not intrude upon him they were always there on the other side of a little wall. At the breath of invitation Charles knew his protector and guide would come. The paltry barrier between them could never keep him out. The plain ahead of him did not vary even after what felt like hours of walking. There was no breeze at all, leaving everything to feel as still as stone. The sky bore down upon them so that it felt as if the void of stars was within an arrow's reach. Charles bent forward, one hand clutching his tail, the other holding his cloak, nose sniffling through his own breath. The groups of people clustered together he saw at a distance generally seemed to stay at a distance. What little of the plain he could see between the sides of his cowl hurt his eyes to follow too closely. Unlike Klepnos's realm which made no sense in any direction, here what happened if he glanced to either side was consistent in its incongruity. But it did not move as the real world did and that made it difficult to observe. As long as Charles stared straight ahead at the point on the non-existent horizon toward which he walked, then only the way his vision seemed to stretch into infinity bothered him. Perspective was maintained along that straight path. But should his eyes veer a short distance – as a rat he could not keep them from veering as the shape of his head made him prefer to focus on what happened on either side of him – then he saw everything rushing away as if twisted on some giant disc, so that objects which had appeared near the path he followed would rush away like a Lutin fleeing the axe. But there was something even stranger. A slight angle difference in either direction from the point directly ahead of him also seemed to remain fixed in place. And should he stare at something between those points that were fixed, the more he walked, the nearer they seemed to his destination! It was if he were walking through bubbles of soap, all sense of distance and perspective distorted so that he could no longer tell what was far away and what was near at all. The many groups of people he saw huddled together would one moment appear to be within shouting range and then the next they would be flung away off to his side to disappear beyond the folds of his cowl. Others seemed as if he would never near them only to be thrust within view for a moment's breath before they too were sucked away by the cold. In a moment of curiosity, Charles turned his head as he walked to stare to his left. His impression of a vast disc on which everything turned was insufficient to describe what in those few seconds he witnessed. Groups of people, the slightest variations in the permafrost, all of it moved back and forth, here and there in a series of spirals whose intricate patterns were a mystery to him. It made him feel nauseated. He did not try it a second time. But as disturbing as the strange way everything moved around him, he would not make the mistake of closing his eyes. All he heard was the crunch of the ground beneath his numb paws and the similar sound that came from the fall of Qan-af-årael's boots. As he forced his legs to take each step, he peered across the wall at the edge of his mind and whispered a question. Why is it impossible to tell how far away anything is here? The presence of his companion shifted to that wall, like a bank of fog climbing the ledge around Metamor. Because all paths here lead to Kilyarnie. Distance does not mean the same thing here as we are used to. Imagine you are walking on the inside of a vast funnel. If you do not walk straight toward the bottom, objects on one side will veer away from you, while those on the other will remain close for a time. It is not quite what we do here, but the idea is similar. Charles tried to imagine what it might be like to walk along the inside of a funnel, but had difficulty grasping it. Qan-af-årael's presence intruded on his pondering as of a gate captain warning his people of an enemy without. It is the least dangerous aspect of this place. We still tread its periphery. You must stay as warm as you can; do not turn to stone here or you will not survive to reach Kilyarnie much less the bridge. Charles shuddered and gave a quick nod. He tried to quicken his pace but even with his Sondeck could only manage a little speed. He risked lifting one paw to adjust the cloak so that the tip of his snout was covered; this did expose one of his legs more than he would like – the section removed by Tallakath's gardeners and the section he'd given up to garb one of Tallakath's victims now haunted him – but it allowed him to breathe somewhat warmer air. Though he could not be certain how long he had been walking, nor how far they had come or how far they had to go, but one thing that he did know was that the air had grown colder. The ground beneath his feet was sprinkled with ice crystals that added a shimmer of white to the dusky gray of the permafrost. The clouds above them seemed thinner than before, and from time to time they would open up to reveal the bleakness of a night sky. That black void felt much nearer as if the sky itself were only as tall as Metamor's cathedral and not spanning the expanse of mountains. Charles shivered beneath the cloak and kept walking. To his surprise, one of the groups of people huddled together appeared in view along one of the angles that seemed to stay fixed. He watched them for a time as he tried not to think of the pain in his legs and paws. At first he could make nothing out but as they closed he saw that there were more than a dozen men and women all pressed as closely as they could together. Charles first thought that they had done so for mutual benefit, helping to keep each other warm for just a bit longer. But as the group drew closer along that fixed angle, he realized that mutual benefit had nothing to do with what he saw. The two dozen or so were formed in the middle by four larger men who had their arms wrapped about eight others, holding them in tight so there was no space between their flesh. The next eight out also had their arms wrapped about one or two others, keeping them as close as they possible could to steal their warmth. The dozen men and women on the outermost ring were there against their will. Not that, to judge by their blank expressions and their ice covered extremities, they had any will left to object. Their arms hung limply at their sides, fingers and toes all blue and swollen from frostbite. Their faces were sallow, with ice coating their hair, lashes, and beards. Their eyes were open and frozen in place, a sheen of pale blue coating them. The next ring in, having exhausted the warmth of those on the outside, were also beginning to show the effects of the cold. Their flesh, where visible, had traces of frostbite, and their expressions were fixed in a rictus of resignation. Only the four larger men in the middle still seemed determined to keep the ice at bay; only they still had warmth around them to steal. And yet, not a one of them moved; they did not even blink. They were as frozen in place as those poor souls whose fires had already gone out. Charles pulled his cloak more tightly about his chest and whimpered under his breath. He feared what would happen should they draw too close to this group of warmth-stealing souls, but his path from which he could not make himself deviate brought them right to him. His eyes ever stayed upon them as they neared, swelling and larger until he could see how they rose up above him. As a rat he was used to being a head or two shorter than most of his friends, but for some reason – or perhaps merely from the whims of the mistress of this barren place – the frozen human souls appeared to tower above him. He knew he should be at eye level with their chest, but instead he felt he had to glance upward just to find their knees. And then, as they reached the edge of that collection of souls their swollen feet, frozen to the ground so that they were actually encased in slopes of ice, framed him as the roots of his tree in Glen Avery did. Charles passed in between the ankles, head bowed ever so slightly to hold in his warmth. Veins of blue laced the ice that stretched across the ground from foot to foot. His claws found some purchase in the ice, but still he slipped and stumbled. Qan-af-årael steadied him with a single hand, and a nearness of presence urged him to keep walking. The rat did so, right into the center of that mass of thieving souls. The second ring of souls were not encrusted by ice, though their extremities, some clad and some not, were all beginning to show the signs of it. Crystals formed along the edge of their feet; he saw swollen toes on some. Before him a pair of boots rose upward to an impossible height, greater than that of Metamor castle. And yet the sky still seemed to bear down on them ever closer. Had Charles and Qan-af-årael shrunk to the size of grasshoppers, or was this just one more strange distortion inimical to this realm? The air in between the legs and feet of the innermost ring had a tinge of warmth to it. He could for the first time smell the sweat of flesh and hear the twinge of a heart beat in the giants above him. For a moment he considered pausing to allow that warmth to fill him. He could wait a few moments here. His shivering would still, the pain in his legs and paws from exposure would be healed. All he had to do was linger for a time and he would be himself again. But how long a time? Would he become like these four thieves, unable to move for fear that they would lose what little heat they could still steal? At the wall in his mind he felt the presence of his guardian urging him onward, as if he were in agreement with this subtle warning. Charles kept walking. The cooler air returned the moment he passed into the second circle of legs, and he resumed shivering when he stepped past the ice-caked legs of the frozen souls. When at last he emerged from beneath them he saw that the permafrost had completely surrendered to the ice. The vast plain of this barren realm was now covered for as far as his eyes could penetrate in a sheet of dull white ice. Gray, thin clouds sagged beneath the weight of the void pressing down on them from above. The pain in his legs grew worse with each step, but he continued to walk, shivering in his flesh and chittering in his teeth. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>