<html> <body> --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars IV: Infernus (q) Saturday, May 12, 708 CR The bridge swept past in the blink of an eye and Charles struck hard against a bright yellow road. He groaned and gasped for breath as he lay there, his teeth rattled by the jarring impact, pain throbbing through his entire body. But as he lay there those pains faded to aches and his racing heart slowed along with the rapid whoops of his gasping breath. For several seconds he did nothing but lay where he had come to rest, staring at the rough surface of the incongruously yellow road upon which he sprawled. As the pain ebbed he began to notice two things for which he felt a swell of gratitude. The first was that his flesh was whole again. The burns that had seared his left side were no more; healed as thoroughly as if they had never occurred. His ear, savaged by terrible claws, was whole and unblemished and his tail – severed most cruelly – had been restored. Qan-af-årael had promised his tail would return and so it had! Every terribly injury had been reversed, every scratch and bruise he had suffered in the savage daedra's arena – gone utterly. Charles pulled the tip of his tail to his snout and pressed it against his cleft lips in a delighted kiss. The second thing he noticed was that the suffocating red that had infested both the earth and the air in the violent daedra's realm was gone. The surface of the yellow road upon which he had come to rest, and his eyes had been staring at fixedly during the long moments he waited for the pains to fade and his heart to slow, appeared to be of a single material. There were no stones, nor seams to indicate stone or brick or anything else, but whatever it was made of defied Charles' understanding. It was neither gold, nor sulfur, or anything he knew. Charles, remembering the chain and collar, was loathe to reach within to learn more. Taking his tail in both hands Charles levered himself up to take in the new vista into which had had been cast with such brutal strength his arrival had left a furrow in the soft grass for almost ten paces before reaching the road upon which he had finally come to rest. Grass. Green, verdant, welcoming. The smell of it had been in his nostrils since arriving but only as his eyes took in the terrible wound left by his arrival – though no bridge or other means of entry were visible – did the unmistakeable reality of that smell strike him. The soft lawn of nearly tended grass begged him to lie in it and simply let his cares fade away. Charles felt himself leaning toward it, furrow of churned earth notwithstanding, to do just that. Catching himself, Charles reared back in surprise. Where was he, after all?! Shifting to his knees and then standing, the pain of his travels and battles faded, Charles looked around. He had come to a sprawling stop in what appeared to be a sizable courtyard bounded on one side by a hedge that towered twice his own height, a single gap offering welcome entry into he assumed was merely a garden labyrinth. Pavilions of the sort he'd find in a southern Pyralian villa, both open and tented, dotted the green, the diaphanous material of roof and wall billowing on a breeze on the perfect side of cool. Rich colors, damask and lavender in particular though he could not count the variety of azure and jade he also glimpsed, adorned everything in sight like dropped silks. Above him the sky appeared draped in a twilight glow from some unseen source as if he were actually in a vast, warm room. There were no stars in the sky, no sun nor moon to offer him any sense of time. He could imagine that the glow were offered by countless candles and lanterns; light enough to see easily but just dim enough to invite intimacy. And judging by the giggles and growls, gasping and moaning, grunts and cries of pleasure, that invitation was not ignored. Charles was a man grown, even if he were now a rat, and he understood those sounds well. In pavilions lacking walls he could see shadowy forms in earnest motion but chanced not to look more closely or intrude upon the sources of those pleasured sounds coming at him from every direction save down. Incense tickled at his nose with whiff of opiates and the effervescence of hashish. He swallowed heavily, senses dulled in that haze of perfume that shamed the most redolent boudoir. That particular essence he had long savored that lingered in the air of his bedchambers after a passionate night with his wife now teased at his whiskers. But more compelling was the scent of food. Glorious, luscious, delectable aromas of fresh fruit, cured meats, delicious cheeses sharp, mellow, or musky all made his mouth water. His tongue slipped free at the tang of exotic spices in never-ending combinations that called to him more firmly than tug of chain. He felt lifted from the earth by the promise of cumin and rosemary, anise and nutmeg, cinnamon and thyme, paprika and sesame, and many others he could not name. The biting promise of wine in unending profusion reminded him just how long it had been since he had even sipped a thimble-full of water. There were countless other scents as well, all natural, some tantalizing, some heavily pungent but all bespeaking of a single overwhelming desire beyond hunger. One struck Charles as particularly overwhelming, a scent he never would have paid heed to before he became a rat for it was unique to being what he now was. A very feminine scent that lanced through his senses as keenly as the sharpest sword and lit a fire within his loins that left him reeling. Lifting his head slightly Charles cast his nose toward that musk, his whiskers trembling, but at the same time he sought to withdraw from it; from the complete relinquishment of control its appeasement would demand. Where was Qan-af-årael, he wondered, sending his thoughts in search of him beyond his nose though his body turned and his upraised snout sought the source of those mingles aromas of food and flesh. The lordly Åelf had contended against the very Lord of Rage in the dark god's own house. Did his contest continue, a stalemate of violence, as his protector ever sought to enter the bridge? Had Revonos defeated him and fitted him with a collar of his own, leaving Charles to face what he might encounter alone? Charles shuddered at the thought of being left without his guide and protector, a soul so ancient and so unimaginably powerful that he could stand against the gods in their own thronerooms and escape undefeated. Padding the down the pathway of unidentifiable yellow material the rat crept past the nearest of the pavilions, this with its silken walls drawn down. That thin barrier showed shadows writhing within, but did nothing to mask the sounds that they made. Backing his ears Charles sidled past, leaving the garden, going from where he had no idea where he was to another place that he know how where it was; but the bridge would be there. He had to trust in the Åelf. Qan-af-årael would appear, as unblemished as Charles, after he vanquished Rage, to lead his little rat beyond this place of suffering and woe. Creeping along the walls, ducking quickly past doors, Charles entered a wide corridor paved in that yellow material. Under his paws it felt like sand that had been frozen in place; rough enough that his paws did not slip but smooth enough to be comfortable underfoot. It was neither hot nor cold nor, particularly, hard. It did not deform with each step but there was a subtle yield to it as if he were walking on tamped earth. In short, it was a perfect surface upon which to walk unfatigued if that were his desire. Charles had no such desire; he only wished to achieve the next bridge or to find where Qan-af-årael had come to rest after escaping from Revonos' realm. When a hand seized his arm Charles let out an indecorous chuff of surprise and tried to pull away but the grip was like iron. He leaned against the grasp, which turned out to be nothing more than a purely ordinary hand unblemished by the callouses of labor or color of work out-of-doors. An aristocrat's hand, or noble's, though the owner of that hand was dressed in the rags of the meanest peasant. At one time they had been the cloths of a courtesan but time and depredations had reduced them to tatters barely sufficient to clothe the woman's flesh. Despite the fact that he planted his paws Charles felt himself dragged into the room from which the woman's hands had groped for, and found, a hapless passing victim. Within were a score or two of similarly dressed fallen nobles both men and women, their formal clothing stained and ragged with unknowable age, milling about a table from which the mouthwatering scents of a wondrous feast arose. Charles felt his paws forfeit their firm grasp of the yellow pathway and his weight drifting toward that table under the desperate pull of the woman's hand. The table was as long as the Great Hall of Metamor ad weighted to groaning under the mass of delicacies being brought out by an endless line of servitors. Here and there forms cavorted upon the table, ignoring the food and the results their activities had upon the dishes nearest, and Charles cast his gaze away from them and deafened his ears to their urgent sounds. He then understood the shabbily clothed woman's plea when he saw another of the beggared nobles snatch up an apple backed in cinnamon. Even as the man brought it toward his face the apple putrefied and crumbled in a sodden mass of corruption. Despite that the man shoved the remains at his mouth only to have them arrive as dust. Nothing was left even on his fingers to lick; the apple had been utterly consumed by decay. Tentatively, moved by pity, Charles picked up a meat pastry and offered it to the woman. With a look of wondrous thanks the woman released his arm and snatched the pastry with both hands sparing him not another look. The moment she raised it from his palm the pastry sloughed into mold and the meat crumbled to dust leaving her noble hands unblemished by so much as a crumb. While she moaned at the failure of her desperate thoughts Charles made his escape, darting back out into the passage of the yellow path and almost collided with the most ideal image of beauty he had ever crossed in all the days of his mortal life – human or rodent. Standing just beyond the doorway was a rat – a female rat – of radiant white garbed in the finest of royal gowns. Her eyes were an arresting shade of azure blue that did not gaze upon him beatifically; they were level, appraising, and hungry in a most coquettish manner. To her beauty – perfectly smooth pink nose, exquisitely shaped incisors, whiskers of exact measure and breadth, ears delicate and round, and breasts ample but not overflowing – the Lady Kimberly was the meanest of peasants, a visage so revolting to look upon her after this comely beauty would be enough to make him nauseous. In such proximity her bouquet – a plethora of mixed aromas – struck him like a hammerblow. Under the scents of perfume perfect for her natural musk, of the finest silks and oils, was another scent altogether. The scent of her nature refined, at the peak of ripeness, lit a fire within the rat that burned his thought to a whirling fog. The candle, the flame; shield with sword inscribed; center and cleanse! The simple meditations of Charles' youth was all he could find to cling to lest he fling himself into that ravishing beauty and be lost. He reeled back, focusing on the inner calm, the center that would allow him to purge the fire that threatened his sanity and the very love he had for his own wife. Throwing a hand up as if suddenly facing a blinding light Charles turned and fled down the passageway. The image of beauty and lustful desire did not pursue, merely looking after his retreating form with a slight smile pulling at the corners of her perfect muzzle, perfect tail and immaculate whiskers twitching. A challenge! Accepted. Walking swiftly, wondering if his master and protector Qan-af-årael had finally fallen, was still fighting, or had escaped, Charles darted quick glances in doors as he passed. Each seemed more alluring than the last, but at the same time more revolting to his morals. Taking a corner when the path turned, he found a pair standing – or, rather, leaning – in the corner of two walls. A woman, perfectly human in form and beauty, was pinned against the corner with her legs wrapped about the swarthy muscular hips of a man whose clothes had been shed only enough to accomplish the task. Something told Charles that the man was more than he appeared; some itch deep in his gut told him that he looked upon an entity as sinister as Tallakath's insectile nurses. The demon had its back to him, his head bent to the woman's shoulder. Quickly sidling around them Charles saw in the woman's face not rapture or even pleasure at all. What he saw was a deep, unappeasable frustration as desperate as the lady at the table. While the two couple with boundless energy in the public venue of the yellow floored passageway Charles knew that she had not – and never would – achieve what she desired. She was as much a tortured soul as those clambering madly after foods that became dust in their hands. The woman's fingers clawed at the demon's back in the throes of rapturous pleasure that her body felt but her soul could not; an appetite that could never be slaked no matter how she yearned for that release – just once – that would allow her damned soul to slip free its bonds of lust. Backing down the corridor until he felt safe that the demon would not turn, with the woman's hungry eyes boring into him as if wondering that he might offer her what the demon could not, Charles felt his upper lip curl from his teeth. Clearly, the hellish being was achieving precisely what his victim wanted, while she was denied. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>