<html> <body> --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars IV: Infernus (p) Saturday, May 12, 708 CR Charles frowned, fingered the severed flesh of his tail one last time, before letting it fall behind him. The wind had completely stilled and the stone bridge no longer filled him with dread. Their steps carried them across the abyss and into a broad, winding ravine between low ridges of jagged rock. The land remained barren with no sign of life. He could hear in the distance more screaming but nothing any closer. His gait felt awkward with half his tail missing, but Charles adjusted after a few minutes and felt his balance restored. He walked beside his protector, right hand wrapped about his Sondeshike, the left gripping his cloak, though he felt no more need to cover his snout. Whatever influence the blood dust had held over him was broken. It stank and revolted him but nothing more. To his surprise, they walked unmolested for more minutes than he could count. The ravine widened and flattened until they reached another ledge and beheld a vast plain spread as far as his eyes could penetrate the crimson gloom. In the midst of that plain he beheld a vast circle of stone, fiery columns at every turn, and a monstrous castle capping the field whose towers seemed deformed as if each had been beaten into place with a giant hammer. The walls seemed to be giant arms stretched outward from the fortress to encompass everything in sight. Charles tried to swallow but had no spit. His protector's voice filled him deeper than before, as if it were reaching to the wounds already healed. The abode of the master of this realm. The bridge and our escape lie beneath the center of his arena. Do not hesitate to strike anything that attacks you in this place. Not even for a breath. Of course, Master Åelf. A narrow track along the ledge guided them down to the plain; at points it turned too steep to walk and so they scrambled part of the way. Charles grimaced at each bump of his tail stump against one of the stones, but tried not to think of it or the ruin of his ear. One hand over stone at a time they climbed down until the slope leveled and they were able to walk again. The plain stretched in every direction, seeming wholly empty but for the castle and arena. The screams that echoed faintly in every direction were now accompanied by some other sound. Charles grimaced as he realized it was a thousand monstrous voices cheering some infernal victory. He tried not to let his imagination ponder anything they might see there, but he could still remember the image of the black armored daedra. He could not stop the shudder from shaking his fur. The trek across the plain did not take nearly as long as the distance suggested it would. What demons chose to watch from those walls appeared more interested in what transpired within than what lurked without, and Charles and Qan-af-årael reached them without any alarm sounding. They were fashioned from the same blood-imbued rock that festered in every direction. Charles again had the impression that they were beaten into the ground instead of built up from it. He saw no opening, but Qan-af-årael turned to the right and after only thirty paces came to a cleft in the wall wide enough for both of them to pass through. Charles gripped his Sondeshike so tightly that his claws pricked his palm. Darkness closed in around them as they passed through, but the Åelf seemed to know the way twisting without striking either wall. He turned Charles and the rat obeyed. They emerged in the midst of a long series of wide steps, rising behind them and descending to the arena floor before them. On every side Charles glimpsed some monstrosity. Hell hounds bayed where they were chained, gremlins cavorted and hooted in tiny, nasty voices, while larger creatures roared their approval in tones that could grind stone. For the moment, their attention was on the arena floor and both Åelf and rat went unnoticed. They walked down the steps. Charles felt his eyes drawn to the castle yawning over the field. A figure garbed in black armor lounged upon a hideous throne of skulls, one hand wrapped about a basalt iron chain. The coils of chain dangled off the parapet and into the arena, ending in a spiked collar about the neck of a gargantuan wolf-monster, its red-stained fur so soaked in blood and gore that it was impossible to tell what color it might once originally have been. The beast was gnawing into the entrails of some other creature it had just killed, something that might once been man-shaped. All that could be recognized now was a man-like arm ending in a golden lion's paw. Charles averted his eyes. They reached the bottom of the stairs and another wall, this one only slightly higher than the rat himself. Qan-af-årael hoisted himself onto the wall, and then helped Charles scramble over. They dropped a good twenty feet into the arena below. Charles brushed a bit of dust from his scouting cloak, and then resumed following the Åelf toward the center. They walked a good thirty paces before the roar of approval and malicious delight of the crowd gave way to bewilderment and calls for blood. The thing in black armor stirred in its seat, the chain in its hand rasping over the stone like a coiling snake, and Charles felt his neck tighten even without the collar. The beast gorging itself at the other end of the chain lifted its head. Eyes of solid, featureless gold blazed with fury at the intrusion into its domain, and blood-soaked jaws spread in a warning growl. Fire licked the ground at its feet, followed by spindles of ice lacing the dusty sand covering the arena floor. None of it came near them, and for a moment Charles wondered if they were not mere warnings to keep away from its kill. “Ah, new victims for the Beast!” shouted the thing in black armor. The voice thundered and almost cavorted in its malevolence and amusement. The head, limned with red at every crevice, turned toward Charles. “Handicap your rage here, little Rat, and I guarantee you a slow and torturous death.” Charles tensed at the voice, fearful that a chain would sprout from his neck again, but there was nothing before him but the sand, the glimmers of ice, and the immense wolf wreathed in a wintry tempest. Qan-af-årael continued walking, though from his hands the tree blades sprouted, burning a bright blue instead of their usual green. Charles started spinning the Sondeshike, eyes transfixed on the wolf. From the ends of each thread of ice sprang another five wolves, equal in size and indistinguishable in appearance. The six wolves opened their jaws as one, and from those maws erupted a shower of ice that flashed across the arena. Qan-af-årael swung both blades and deflected the worst of the storm, but the stinging frost still burst through. Charles raised the spinning disk, and felt the stab of chill rush through him. Icicles shattered against his shield like hail against stone. From his right a large shape bounded. Charles turned to strike, but met only air as his staff passed through the image of the beast, seeming to shatter it into a thousand immaterial fragments. He tensed when he realized it was an illusion and spun on his feet anticipating a real attack from behind. But this was only a probe of skill and perception, and nothing but cold struck at him, snow and ice closing a veil around him. Charles spun around, trying to locate the wolf, and then realized with sickening suddenness that he could not find Qan-af-årael in the maelstrom either. “The fire of anger will burn through the snow, little rat!” the mocking voice called out, booming across the field and over the cheers of the crowd. They shouted a name, a name of hard edges and slashing bite, but he allowed none of it to distract him, not even the poisoned suggestions. Anger clouded his thoughts and he needed them clear. A second wolf struck him from behind, but this too shattered at the merest touch of his Sondeshike. The scattered blistering red fur enveloped him for a moment and he gasped at the blindness that took him. And then he heard it. So subtle and so small, something that an untrained ear would never discern, but also something that came and went so quickly that only reflexes trained for a lifetime could understand in time. He heard the faint clinking of a chain. He knew that sound for it had almost been his chains. The wolf, the real wolf and not one of its illusions, had leaped into the air at his right. Charles ducked and lifted the Sondeshike in an overhand swing just as the monstrous beast hurtled through the screen of sleet. The staff struck it in the shoulder, diverting its trajectory just far enough aside that its jaws, which snapped shut with the finality of a headsman's axe, claimed but a whisker from the rat's jowls instead of the entirety of his face. The wolf landed behind him, metal claws of one forepaw grinding into the stone for a pivot point to maintain its moment, and then hurled itself back in for a second bite. Charles twisted to bring his staff to bear, but the beast moved as lightning, faster even than a Sondecki locked in the Tanze. He would draw blood. Through the tempest, the blue fire of the tree sword crashed down with a thunderclap into the beast's back. Charles flinched and brought his hands up, expecting to be battered backward by the bisected pieces of the wolf, but the blade did not pierce its bloodied fur. The beast was instead driven for a moment into the ground. Twisting in place without even a hint of pain, the wolf snatched the end of the blade in its jaws, and bit through. The light flared, momentarily resisting the assault with an ear-flattening screech, before exploding in a cerulean cascade of sparks. The black-armored thing laughed, and his voice cleaved through the battle noise as clear as if he were standing next to them. “What's the matter rat? Have you forgotten how to fight? Use the rocks! They are yours to command; they will bend to your need; they will answer to your rage!” Charles resolved anew not to turn his flesh to stone for any reason as he turned the Sondeshike hand over hand, twisting it back and forth before him as he drove through the wintry veil. Swirls of white cascaded around him as he struck at the beast's momentarily unprotected head. In response, the golden-eyed wolf leaped upward thirty feet into the air from a dead crouch, opened jaws vomiting forth a wave of ice that splashed across the ground, engulfing both Charles and Qan-af-årael. The wolf then vanished back into the fog of snow, impossible to follow among all the swirling gusts and illusory shadows. Charles dashed the Sondeshike against the ice encrusting his feet; two blows was all it took to free them. It took only moments, but it still took too long. The rattle of the chain reached his ears just as he drove the brass ferrules into the ice the second time. Without other options, Charles shrank as fast as he could, dwindling almost to a full rat, and the Beast's red jaws slashed through where Charles been standing only a moment before. Charles willed himself to grow again, tight fist rising in an uppercut arc, only for the Beast to yank sharply to the side, jerking its iron chain hard against the back of the rat's knees. A shaggy shoulder slammed the rat further off-balance an instant later, toppling him complete. His eyesight filled with slavering jaws and bared teeth, his nose with icy, blood-metallic breath, and his chest was crushed by heavy paws. And then suddenly the wolf's head was not there. Or rather, half of its head flew off in a spray of gore when a violet nimbus so dark it seemed black, ripped through the air and cleaved the monstrous wolf's head in twain. Charles slid both his Sondeshike and his legs between him and the wolf's body and heaved upward, catapulting the corpse into the air as Charles sprang back to his feet. But the wolf with half a head, to the rat's surprise, landed on its feet. A snarl escaped its throat as it swung a somehow undiminished glare back to rat and Åelf. The blow had removed the top right half of its head, from the left eye down to the jaw. All of it grew back as if the flesh were a swarming mass of leprous thread tying itself together. But unlike the rest of him, this flesh and fur regrew white and the eye that opened was a soft but lively brown. For a moment Charles felt a stab in his heart. His gaze swept across that almost friendly half-visage, the spiked collar at his neck, and the long, iron chain that bound him to the master of this realm. He trembled in the certainty that this is the sort of monster he would have become had he accepted the chain still offered to him. This beast had once been a man like him. But that two-faced moment did not last. The great wolf shook its head, and the red coating the rest of its body seeped across to swallow the white, as if the blood were a living thing ever feasting upon the beast's hide. The brown of its eye flared into golden fire to match its malevolent twin. Its paws braced and its jaws stretched wide, each fang shimmering with a unearthly white light in the glow of the deep violet blades while the rest of it seemed to retreat into darkness. Its maw was a cavernous emptiness into which no living thing could come out. Energy blasted at the Åewlf in bolt after thunderous bolt, slamming against Qan-af-årael's parrying purple blades like a battering ram against a castle wall. The warring magics clashed with a scream so strident that Charles clasped his paws over his ears, nearly defeaned. Even the hellish crown cringed away from the aural assault. Charles began to fear that even Qan-af-årael might not be able to withstand this, and he was not about to wait to find out. He danced back out of the way, lifted his arms, and flung them downward. The burst of Longfugos ripped up the surface of the rock and ice, carrying with it a sheen of white and red in its wake like a wedge aimed directly at the wolf's head but the beast split itself with illusion and leaped in three directions to dodge the strike. Its chain, glowing as if white-hot, hissed as the ice-filled blast struck it but otherwise showed no damage. The lightning bolts ceased and did not return. “Good! Good! Use your fury, Rat! Exult in your hate and anger and you can defeat the Wolf!” Charles instead sang beneath his breath the Song of the Sondeck. He would not hate and he would not be dispossessed of his Calm. And in the moment of clarity his denial gave him, an idea arrived. Everything in this place yearned for violence. He could strike his enemies without ever touching them. Why not the stones as well? They were ravenous for it. Could he touch them without being touched by them? The wolf tilted back its heads and loosed a thunderous howl that split the sky and shook the stands. Charles struggled to keep his feet while the Åelf remained immovable. From the stands rushed forward all of the hell hounds that had been gathered in observance. Some of these came up short when their masters restrained them, but more than three dozen rushed onto the field from every direction, jaws slavering for blood. Charles sucked in his breath, raised his Sondeshike in the air, and then struck the ground beneath his feet. A ring of stone erupted around the arena, knocking most of the hounds backward and even impaling some who yelped in anguish as their blood splattered in every direction. Another dozen continued to rush forward. He struck the earth again and half of them were balked. They scrambled to climb over the wall of jutting stone, but it bought them time. The war wolf actually appeared surprised by this attack, but that surprise only seemed to delight him, as he licked his jaws and brought another swirling tempest into life: this one a mix of both brimstone and snow that stung, singed, and chilled at the same time. Golden eyes glinted with savor. Hold him at bay a moment longer. I stand upon the bridge. Charles felt a twinge of anger slipping in through his hands and up his arms. The black-armored figure rose from his seat and applauded, both hands holding chains. The first was the iron chain about the wolf's neck. The second was spectral and incomplete. Charles renewed the song in his heart. He would not let that second chain appear. The wolf thrust its tornadoes of ice and fire loose, and they careened one off another, turning the air into a churn through which the rat found it impossible to see. He twisted the Sondeshike again, stepping deftly through each hole in the air, always keeping near the Åelf. His heart raced as he danced, but he held tight to that sliver of Calm he'd found. Jaws snapped from his left but the rat heard no chain and he ignored it. The bite crushed down upon him before vanishing in a wisp of ice that cut his flesh and made his ruined ear twitch. The clink of chain then sounded from his right, and he flicked the Sondeshike without touching the ground. The stone rose up in a long set of spikes. The wolf appeared through the midst of his tornadoes, crashed into the spikes and shattered them with its body. Its momentum stalled, the wolf regathered its strength and leaped again with a snarl. Charles flicked his staff upward and a tower of stone erupted from the ground to knock the wolf aside. “Brilliant! Now strike with anger unfurled and your stone will crush all!” A glimmer of weight touched his neck and Charles began to sing the Song out loud. The weight vanished with those sweet words that soothed his heart. Still he could hear the chain-bearer's mocking laugh and trembled. The snarling of the hell hounds that had crossed his barrier turned his ears. Charles spun on his paws, smacking each out of the way with gusts of air and force, doing his best not to move the rock unless he had to. Charles heard the snap of bones and the yelps of pain but refused to savor them. He struck to kill them because he must, not for love of their death, but for love of his family. Even so, there were more rushing him from all sides than he could stop, and the beast wolf was still out there prowling and waiting for its chance to fell him low. Charles sucked in his breath, and then swung the Sondeshike out in a wide arc all around. The ground in every direction save for near the Åelf erupted into a thousand spears so narrow and sharp that over a dozen of the hounds were skewered immediately. The rest bayed and snarled at the periphery, clawing at the spires with no way to get through. The chain stretched out from the black-armored thing's mailed hand, rushing out to meet the rat. He could feel the collar at his neck as a weight coming into being. The chain did not quite reach him, but another such blast from his hands would tie him to it forever. Charles wailed at the deception of material strength. He felt it more than heard it. A gust of freezing wind whipped his cloak from behind, and Charles spun in time to see his stone spear barricade engulfed in a coalescing wave of ice. The blood-red wolf leaped atop the nullified obstacle with a triumphant snarl, and then launched intself at Charles with jaws and claws outstretched. Charles lifted his Sondeshike, ready to sweep out another thrust of stone, but into that moment came a still, small voice, like a whisper that even a gentle breeze would steal away. But through the cacophony of the cheering mass of demons and monsters, through the snarling of the attacking hounds, through the throbbing of Qan-af-årael's efforts, and even through the mocking laughter of the demon lord, this voice touched him. In weakness power reaches perfection. Charles did not swing his Sondeshike, staring down death for the moment unafraid. The paws smashed into his chest and the two of them crashed into the ground, shattering the remnants of ice still there. He felt the nearly-completed collar dig into his shoulders as momentum bore him into the rock. Before him, paws ready to eviscerate his gullet, jaws eager to feed, was the red dire wolf. Charles gasped for breath but found none, the brutish weight of the beast nearly collapsing his ribcage. The beast snarled its victory and then glanced down at his chest as if choosing where to take its first bite. From the corner of his eye Charles saw Qan-af-årael's violet blade descend toward the creature's back. All time seemed to still into that moment. Golden eyes, blazing in their fire, fixed upon his chest, and then froze. A blink as the countenance of the wolf changed, softened, filled with surprise and wonder, as if confronted with something from a half-remembered dream. The tongue lanced between fangs, shaping a word that could not be uttered by its throat as anything more than a choking whimper. A hopeless plea lived in that shaping and in those golden eyes. An uproven yet absolutely certain conviction filled Charles in that moment. He knew this creature not just as a victim of the Lord of Rage, but as a man and a fellow Keeper. The purple blade descended even as the wolf darted its head forward to strike at Charles' throat. Teeth crunched into the ephemeral collar with a shriek of rending spellcraft. Charles thrust his Sondeshike upward against the wolf's side, sprawling them both away from Qan-af-årael and against the rocky spears; the wolf's back passed a hair's breadth from the touch of his protector's blades. Time crashed back into them both, and the wolf bounded up the spears and snapped its jaws in a fury rekindled. The only difference was the direction: outward. The remaining hellhounds balked and milled in confusion, not daring to risk the War Wolf's abruptly turned wrath and, for a moment, an unexpected stillness blanketed the arena. Charles ran one hand over his neck and savored the feel of nothing but fur there. His hand fell down onto his chest, and trembled at the stitching of the Long Scout heraldry there. A whisper passed his tongue, “You're Misha's friend.” “NO!” A voice thundered with such magnitude that the rat lost his balance. A wave of power crashed into the spears, shattering them into flecks of sand and hurling the Beast through the far arena wall with a crunch of stone. “YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE!” The black-armored man stepped over the wall into the arena, his form stretching nearly a hundred feet into the air. A blade dark and twisted, limned with bloody light, filled the hand that had once gripped a chain unforged. Hell hounds yipped in terror as they tried to get away. Several fell beneath his boots and were crushed. Gremlins flew down from the stands and fought over the ruined jelly left behind. “The bridge is ready, Charles. You must go now.” Qan-af-årael's real voice felt so soft that for a moment Charles thought it stranger than the tyrannical blast from the lord of rage. His eyes flicked to the Åelf and marveled as he too seemed to swell in proportion to match that of the deadra. His countenance was imperious and full of a majesty untouchable by death. At his feet lay a circle of darkness that pushed apart the red sands of the arena like a beast shouldering aside the earth as it sprang forth from its burrow. “NO! YOU ARE MINE, LITTLE RAT!” Out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw the sword drive point-first into the arena floor. The ground split in a thousand sections, fiery red light erupting in a mist of flame through each crack. Charles danced back from the nearest blaze, wincing as the searing heat reduced the fur on his left side to blackened curls. The flesh beneath screamed and burned as on the day he'd been struck by the Shrieker. Qan-af-årael swung his violet blade through the flames; they wailed and fell leaving no trace of their presence. Charles crawled forward, barely able to move either left arm or leg. He kept the Sondeshike tucked beneath his good arm as he dragged himself toward the bridge. Only a few feet separated him from the nightmare conflagration and safety. The Åelf stepped forward a pace, his rich blue eyes ageless and unquestionable in their authority. “He does not belong to you. But take that which is yours.” So saying, the Åelf reached down, grasped the iron chain, and lifted the half-buried dire wolf into the air. With a twirl, he cast the blood red beast toward the lord of rage, who was so shocked that any creature could defy him that he paused just long enough for the wolf to bounce off the black plate covering his face. “YOU DARE! I WILL DESTROY YOU BOTH!” he roared and the earth heaved and dust howled in every direction. The crowds in the stands started to scatter. A brilliant plume of crimson light cascaded from the armored thing's body, blasting outward like a detonating storehouse of dragon dust. Charles stretched his arm as far as it could go, slipped his hand into the gap between the folds of the arena sand, and then was upended head over heels when the wall of tremendous energy struck him. Into the gap he fell and all through the bridge the force thrust him. For a single moment all became dark and silent as if his eyes and ears had been plucked out. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>