<html> <body> Final section for this Part of the story! --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars IV: Infernus (z) Tuesday, June 22, 724 CR - Midnight Staring through a narrow casement window; more an arrow loop than a true portal through which anyone was expected to gaze, it took Charlie a few moments to realize the silence that had descended upon the choir. He turned to find the room swathed in deep shadows that cast his sire as a form of stark lines pale in the waning light and dark shadows. “It grows late, son.” Charles said at length with a long sigh. Leaning forward from his seat he stood with a push upon his knees with both hands. “Our families are very likely worried after us.” Charlie spared a brief glance through the stone slot, wondering where the hours had gone. When he first came to his sire the sun had been a few handspans above the western mountains and now its passing was no more than a darkening blue to the sky. Metamor had already surrendered to darkness, save for torches, and the din of the day had given over to a different celebratory din for of the night. With an upward glance Charlie saw stars twinkling in the deepening blue of the evening sky. With the cooling of day into night, so too had the worst of his wrath. But not its kernel. “With some wrath, I wager in my case.” He observed ruefully with a swish of his tail across the long bench behind him. “And moreso from your good wife, the Baroness my mother, on the morrow.” He laced his fingers behind his back and walked over to stand next to his sire. “After the ill dreams I fear this story might bring upon you tonight.” His sire gave a grunt of humor and nodded before shrugging, “It is she who can quiet the plague of dark dreams when they come upon me. Leastwise she has become accustomed to my occasional nocturnal thrashing.” Reaching up he clasped Charlie on the shoulder to lean close, “I know this story is seemingly overlong and circuitous, but you will understand why I am simply not plunging to the heart of it swiftly when it is complete.” The baron tilted his head to one side and murmured, “I am not even describing most of what I saw there; I couldn't.” Charlie nodded slowly, mollified by his sire’s willingness to delve back into memories that had to be unpleasant, but still reserved in offering him immediate amnesty for what he had witnessed in the Baron’s own dreams, and heard admitted by his namesake and now Charles. There was much yet to be said before Charlie could consider the whole of the matter resolved. “On the morrow, then?” Charles stepped to the door and drew it open, the soft light of votive candles spilling across the floor surprising Charlie with just how dark it had gotten while Charles wove the tapestry of personal – very personal – history. A young woman polishing a nearby banister looked up curiously, mildly surprised at their sudden appearance. She smiled softly and bent to her task once more as they padded by on unshod, rodentine feet. “I shall not be early.” Charlie admitted, “Tomorrow is the final day of the festival so I will have to attend some of the ceremonies. And deal with the disruption I caused today.” “As well progress with the last battle of the tournament.” Charlie shook his head, “I already lost at the tilt, and the semi-finals of foot should have been settled this evening; only the final bout remains for tomorrow, as do the last of the jousts and the presentations of masterworks from the journeymen of the mage guilds. I will not participate in any of that.” Reaching the heavy doors of the Cathedral, which stood open to let in a cool night breeze that swept the candle smoke toward the clerestories above, they stepped through into the arcade of a small bailey yard. “I was disqualified!” Charles chuffed, “You should have advanced!” “Disqualified, how? I forfeit, regardless.” Charlie shrugged with the equanimity of youth. “I used my stone magic during the match. No magics were allowed; I disqualified myself.” Charlie snorted and kicked an errant pinecone with one foot, “Better to do that than get brained by a child throwing a tantrum with swords.” He groused in a self-deprecatory tone. Charles clapped him on his upper back with a strong hand. “Knowing now why you were angry… I understand.” He touched his own doublet, still rent by the injury that his son’s anger had caused, “Though it still smarts.” They came to another door on the far side of the bailey yard, “But worry not, son. Go now, I will find you tomorrow and we shall complete this lamentable tale.” ---------- All that stood between the demesnes of Metamor and the demesnes of House Sutt were an intricately worked pair of doors that towered the height of two tall men – or one particularly tall animorphed Keeper – at the end of a broad corridor that was this night lined with the statues of the Keep's past lords. All save the last were human while the man-like equine statue of Duke Thomas seemed not quite finished; still a work in progress. Charlie felt one corner of his muzzle draw back in a rueful half-smile, his whiskers twitching as he gave the silent marble figure a brief salute. The doors to House Sutt were intricately worked in scenes of forests. Those often changed according to the whim of the Keep's benign spirit, Kyia, but always favored settings of nature over civilization. Unchanged, however, was the Sutt crest in the center of the doors, bisected on each leaf. And, as unchanged, was the fact that the hinged were expertly crafted and oiled so that the heavy doors were easily moved with one hand and made not the slightest squeak. Charlies slipped through one side and let it drift shut behind him, catching it only enough to silence the soft thud it would make upon closing. A single candle had been left burning in a hooded sconce just within the door. It provided enough light to navigate the short foyer, past the cloakroom and waiting room for the servants of visiting nobles. Beyond the foyer was the main hall for receiving guests or hosting gatherings. Tonight, not needed, the room was modest in scale – for a Noble's hall – but not grandiose. Charles passed through it quietly, his claws clicking softly upon polished stone where it was exposed between lavishly woven Sondesharan rugs. Beyond the parlor a narrower corridor led to the Sutt residences proper, both doors standing open. The room beyond was lit as dimly as the foyer and, where the far wall would be from his vantage, the doors to the balcony had been thrown open to the cool evening air. Only the torches of the watch on the inner bailey wall marred the majestic vista of the mountains rising beyond, swathed as they were in the night's cloak of darkness. “It is nice that you still know where you live,” a quiet voice intoned from one of the large chairs scattered about the common room of their residence. Charles stopped two steps within, a grimace flattening his ears and drooping his whiskers. A soft warble of strings added to the quietude of the room, seeming to echo the distant susurrus of Metamor's nighttime revelry rather than climb over it. “I am sorry, father,” Charlie groused, though quietly, altering his path toward the chair that Malger usually chose. True to form, he found his adoptive father ensconced within, leaning into the corner of the throne-like chair with an indolent slouch, his feet kicked out upon an ottoman. Polished brown toeclaws glistened in the muted light of a single candle burning on a table nearby. In his hands was a small lyre which he strummed with equal indolence. Only his father, a minstrel by habit rather than birth, could efface such a lazy appearance without apparent sloth or loss of noble decorum. “For?” The marten raised a furry brow over a dark eye as he turned his gaze from lyre to son. “Missing the Duke's feast? For leaving Maysin standing a fool, bedecked in tack and bridle, at the tourney field gate? For nearly twisting your neck from your shoulders leaping from a second floor midden door?” Charlie's muzzle contorted into a moue of consternation and he could not meet his father's inscrutable dark stare. The lyre's soft melody was a strange counterpoint to the calm rebuke. “For being an ass.” “For a rat, I must commend you on a believable facsimile of such breed,” Malger chided softly. “Your mother is a touch more irritated with your decorum, my son. Hassan was... confused at your display and sudden disappearance. I begged the angst of youthful rebellion and, to my surprise, King Peleath laughed most heartily. He was a rebellious youth, and had many colorful tales to tell in that regard. He volunteered to stand in your stead for the last melee bouts, by the by.” “He chose to champion me?” Charlie's ears sprang up in surprise. “I had imagined my disqualification!” “You – should have been, son.” Malger dipped his muzzle in a curt nod. “I, in fact, did speak of it in light of your rather pointed lack of chivalry on the field. The judges could not disqualify you, for you used no magic and did not strike with un-warded weapons. Baron Matthias' shield caused him to use magic when it broke, and they ruled in your favor there.” Charlie scoffed and looked at his paws for a moment before letting his eyes drift to the distant torches of the night watch adorning the wall beyond their balcony. “He became stone that I not bludgeon him into the ground, Father.” “So said, so truth.” Malger leaned forward slightly and tilted his head, his muzzle couched in an expression of curiosity. “I was informed that you found your sire?” “I did. He was under Father Felsah's watch in the cathedral.” “I will assume you apologized appropriately. Concerning of what we spoke in the tavern, what then did you broach of your sire?” Charlie laced his fingers behind his back, his long tail lashing back and forth with a quiet hiss on the rug upon which he stood. He looked at his naked paws; the long digits and serviceably dangerous claws pale against the intricate patterns of the foreign fabric. “Anger. Loss. A bargain that still leaves my heart aching and me... lost.” He looked up at the last, to meet his father's gaze. “Confused.” “Very. But the tale he tells...” His voice faded and he shook his head as if to cast out the dark thoughts. “Has he told you aught?” Malger shook his head as well, more slowly. “Not the first word. I know nothing past his escape into Shadow.” “It was a ruse, his petition to Nocturna.” “Exactly so.” Malger let his fingers tickle over the strings of his lyre, individual notes floating through the air, a slow dirge spun one pluck at a time. “Exactly so. And she knew that it was.” “And yet she made this bargain?” Charlie gasped, aghast. “Aye, that she did.” Malger flattened his palm against the strings, returning silence but for the distant noise of revelry. “Full and well knowing what would come of it.” “Why?” Malger looked to his son for several long seconds, the memory of a gazelle's soft words in his ears returning afresh. Why? “That is for her to say.” Charlie scoffed with a lash of his tail, whiskers and ears backed as he looked to the steady flame of the candle behind its polished glass chimney. “Such that she would? I doubt that very much.” “She will, son.” “I am but a disciple, yanked willy nilly into the fold. Why would she deign answer my inquiries?” Malger once more shook his head, setting aside the lyre and resting his folded hands upon one knee. “You are her son, Charlie, not merely some churl begging a night without omens or dark dreams.” “Her son?” Charlie snorted incredulously, shifting his gaze to his father. “I am a chit in a game where the rules are beyond my ken.” “Has she ever treated you thus?” Malger's voice rose slightly, touched to defend his Dreamtime love by his son's surly anger. Charlie could only shake his head. “No.” “You are not flesh of my flesh, Charlie, but she dotes upon you as much as a grandmother or aunt might. Or mother.” He paused, pondering, long whiskers drooping as he pursed his lips for a long moment. “It pains her, too.” “Pains?” Malger nodded soberly. “You know – what it is I do, on occasion?” “Oh, aye.” Malger raised a slow hand to touch a finger to his own temple lightly. “Pain shared, taken, and kept. Unknowing I claimed the pain of a deity, son, and selflessly done for what I thought her sake and nothing more. And I keep that which pained her, never to surrender it away. That pain is the loss of a child, and as much the pain of seeing others – Myself, Misanthe, even your dam Kimberly – with the love of a child in their hearts where she has none.” Leaning back into his chair, lost in the shadows of the candle light, Malger flexed his fingers, claws briefly glinting in the wan light. “And thus, by me she cherishes you, as a son.” He leaned forward again, left restless by the admission of a truth given to none in all the years he had carried it. “So, ask her, son to mother; Why. And she will answer.” He paused, then chuckled ruefully. “And, but oh, the jealousy she sometimes feels for Misanthe. And the love. I feel as a moth beholding an inferno.” “An – interesting tale, Father.” Charlie paced away from the chair, crossing to the open doors to feel the night breeze riffling his short fur. “I will ask. But this thing that my sire did, between you and she, still confounds me. Like some complex games that toss my fate about like a gambler's stones. He never said aught of it?” “To none, that I know. But I have known that it was a dark undertaking. When he awoke he was very much a changed man. To the foundation of his very soul, I think, that night touched him. And since that day he had been plagued by the darkest of nightmares.” Charlie turned his head slightly to glance back over his shoulder. “And you took them not away, as you did for so many others?” “I – could not. Though I can share without Sharing, as I have learned to do, one must ask and desire. He does neither.” Malger shifted forward to his paws, moving to stand beside his son at the doors and look into the darkness. Euper and the outer bailey of the Keep glowed with witchlight and torch, shifting shadows high on the walls of the buildings testament to the revel still occurring beyond the quiet conversation taking place in a noble house. As a minstrel Malger should be out there entertaining, or sharing the festivities. Not talking of painful histories with a wayward son. “And I cannot touch those dark dreams. The centeredness of his faith blocks me as soundly as a door of iron.” “I can...” Charlie protested, but then fell silent. What had he seen? How deeply into Charles' dreams had he delved? Directly he had witnessed only the Bargain that set him on his course to become Malger's adopted heir. He shook his head. “Nor have I, in truth. I know only that which he tells me.” Malger's hand rose to rest warmly upon his shoulder. “Then let him tell it, as he may. Perhaps in releasing it he will find peace from his nightmares.” With a squeeze he pushed gently at his son. “Seek your bed, Charlie. You must arise early. Do not seek Her counsel tonight; wait until you have heard your sire's tale unto its completion.” Charlie scowled across at his father. “Rise early? To what end? The tournaments will not resume until the sun is a span above the mountains.” Malger chuckled and raised his brow. “First, to break your fast and apologize to your mother. And then attend Sutt and Hassan for the culmination of the Festival. And congratulate, or commiserate, King Peleath's combat in your stead.” “Ah, and Maysin.” Charlie's shoulders slumped. As much as he was aware that Maysin was merely a servant, she was still one of his closest friends and, most certainly, the closest of his female friends. “I have much to atone for.” Malger chortled warmly and nodded. “As in youth do we all, son. Find your rest.” ---------- And so Pars IV comes to an end! I do hope you all 'enjoyed' it. I will begin posting Pars V in May. Hopefully by Summer this tale will reach its end. May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>