<html> <body> Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars V: Ascensum (c) Wednesday, May 9, 708 CR The children well knew that when the skunk came by to visit their mother that it was a time that the two were not to be disturbed. Even though the lessons had usually taken place in the somewhat confined environs of the tree house common room the children knew that the studies were a time they had best take their play up to their own rooms. But not so this day for, upon arriving to visit the young mage had requested a private audience with his student on one of the balconies of the Mountain's Hearth Inn. While they had from time to time met in the cellars of the Brewery now that Kozaithy had joined them, never before had he asked her to meet him at the Inn and the atypical request left the Lady Kimberly pensive with worry. Charles was away for the day, exploring the Narrows with James and Gibson that they might settle on a plan of construction for his envisioned Keep for their fief. Baerle was with the children while they napped giving Kimberly a couple of hours respite from their rambunctiousness. Thus Kimberly found herself alone with the unusually somber skunk for the first time since the two had bumped into each other in a hallway at Metamor Keep some years before. Only two, it was, but it seemed like so many more at times. At other times it seemed like only yesterday. Leaning against the heavy door of stout oarwood that opened onto the balcony perched astride the peak of the Heaths steeply pitched shale and thatch roof Kimberly pushed it open with a slight struggle despite the oiled hinges. But, where she had expected a flat, wind-swept platform she found a complete room beyond that weighty door. It was bright with sunshine and it stung her eyes that had become accustomed to the gloom of forest. Three of four walls were made up almost entirely of hand poured glass heavy with waves and warps that distorted the view beyond the solar; or any view inside from without. The ceiling, likewise, was mostly glass. It was before the far windows that the mage Murikeer stood, his hands laced behind his back above the voluminous plume of his white slashed black tail. His finery was simple; if well crafted; mere trews of buttery soft leather and a light shirt of deep gray broadcloth as a peasant might wear. His lower legs and feet were unshod, as was his wont, for his legs were shaped like those of a dog rather than flat as a skunk's normally would be. Such were the vagaries of Metamor's curse, but none had thought much of it in the years she had known him. “I am here, Muri,” the young magician's apprentice intoned quietly at the back-turned ears of the taller youth. “What – what is this place?” She craned her head to look around, amazed at the incongruity of the ornate castle room hidden atop the Inn. Murikeer turned around and made a small motion with one hand. Behind the lady rat a quiet whisper ending in a weighty thud heralded the heavy door sweeping closed. His one good eye gazed down upon her, his apprentice and friend, without his customary smile but retaining his usual warmth, though his expression was somber. Kimberly tilted her head slightly, whiskers and ears backing at the sudden sensation of feeling trapped by the weight of that heavy portal. “Muri?” “Welcome, milady.” He bowed his head slowly and then let his gaze cast about the brightly lit room. “This is but an illusion. A recreation of one of the many rooms I've found in my new home... or, rather, what it may look like once I've repaired it sufficiently.” He shook his head and chuffed a quiet, soft laugh. “Lord Avery was certainly generous, but the old house has been sorely left to the elements the past few years. Luckily it was overlooked by the invaders in the winter and escaped complete destruction. No one without will see aught but an empty balcony.” His gaze came in time back around to settle upon her. “It has been busy, of late. I am sorry to have left you without tutelage in the nonce.” He churred warmly with a deeper bow of apology and sweep of one arm toward one of the many large chairs. “You are well in your house?” Kimberly tittered softly and let out a deep sigh. “Well, yes, but like you, ever so frightfully busy with so many energetic young rats running about getting into everything.” “Such is the curse of the change, a new lifestyle. Please, take your ease, milady.” He waited while Kimberly settled into one of the massive chairs. For a moment she was timid about the massive throne of age polished wood and brocade, but when her hand touched the arm she felt that it was real enough beneath the illusion. To her surprise Murikeer approached and settled onto the ottoman at its foot rather than another chair nearby. She found her hands clutching the long tail she swept around to drape across her lap. “What brings you with such a look of seriousness about you today, Muri?” she asked in her quiet, rodentine voice. “All is well, milady.” He sat forward on the ottoman, the long plume of his tail relaxed in an arc behind him like some shadow of fur trying to steal upon him unawares. “But I come with concerns, such as for your ears alone. You may be the only shield standing before a darkness incomprehensible.” Kimberly blinked, her pulse quickening in alarm and her fingers clutching her tail all the more tightly, and then she scowled. “Master Murikeer, you are trying to frighten me?” The skunk shook his head slowly, raising one hand and extending it, palm up, toward her. Kimberly gazed down upon it, but found nothing amiss the black pads and stark monochromatic fur. It was not that she did not trust him; he was ever the gentleman around her and never acted athwart her or Charles in the years they had been friends. Tentatively she raised one of her own small hands reached out to her palm down upon his own. “I am most contrite, milady, but the weight of my words must strike true, like the unquiet omens offered by Nocturna, that they might be remembered upon waking.” No sooner had her palm come to rest upon his own than his free hand raised and swiftly, like a viper espying a mouse, darted down to tap the back of her hand with the stout claw of his middle finger. The sound of claw striking flesh through fur was surprisingly sharp in the quietude of the solar. Kimberly yelped in surprise at the painful prick of that sharp claw and snatched her hand back, clutching it defensively at her breast. He made no attempt to restrain her paw, now capture it to offer up another painful strike. “Muri!” she snapped angrily, holding her assaulted paw close. Murikeer bowed his head before her in contrition. “Again, my apologies, milday. Others may have done so well with a light touch as that, had I but known. Kayla, James, Jessica. Lindsey before them. Each has been touched by the lingering shadow of Marzac, a subtle and deep seeded taint of evil. It is that against much I must warn, and gird you, milady; my friend.” “You needn't strike me, Muri!” She snapped at him, raising her hand to press her thin lips against the stricken back, tasting the blood that welled through the short fur. “What is this you speak of with such frightful solemnity? I know well what happened to them, but they were all saved!” “By whom, milady?” Murikeer raised his head and gazed into her eyes with his own. Upon the intricately tooled leather which covered the gaping rent where his right eye had been small gems winked in the spring sunshine through the windows. Upon the end of his claw a single drop of dark red blood glistened. “By whom?” she asked, confused. “By you? You, and Charles and that raccoon and others.” Murikeer shook his head slowly, dipping his free hand into a pouch at his hip and drawing out a small object. Kimberly's gaze twitched to it distrustfully, her whiskers lying flat back along her muzzle and her round rat ears flattering back upon her hand. It turned out to be nothing more sinister than a rather shapeless roundel of amethyst worn to a smooth polish by time and water. He held it in his palm and shook his head. “Nay, milady. T'were not us, alone, that brought to bay and vanquished those whom were seduced by Marzac's lingering evil. It was those who were closer than we, those alone who could prize their way beyond its power and wrest away those who they loved.” “Loved?” Kimberly found her gaze fixed upon the unremarkable purple lump of stone. Murikeer's claw descended to touch it, moving slowly to trace a line of crimson across the smooth surface as fine as a spider's thread. With surprising finesse the skunk traced a complex pattern upon the stone with her own blood. “Rickkter, Baerle, Weyden, Habakkuk. To each of those they came, their own love the only shield between them and the darkness, but each suffered, some more than others, in standing between Love and Shadow when the shadow was so powerful.” His fingertip circled and slashed, dotted and swirled, covering the stone in a filigree as fine as any embroidery Kimberly had ever seen. “But here is one more over whom we fear the shadow lurks, awaiting. And between that shadow and victory, but one small, frail shield. And it is the nature of a shield to take the strikes levied against its bearer, and to that end the shield must be hardened.” “Whom?” Kimberly found herself both entranced by the apocalyptic portent of his words and the work of that one fingertip. How was it that her blood went so far, and covered so much of that stone, when all he had prized from her was but a single drop? “Charles.” Kimberly's eyes snapped up to find him gazing up at her through the thick white of his brow, the skunk's dark eye warm but alarmingly intense in its regard. “Charles? You're telling me that he is touched by evil? He is not! I would know! He has been naught but gentle and loving since that harrowing journey!” The skunk looked down once more and nodded. “As were all of the others. Jessica, herself, wrought wondrous miracles with that shadow upon her. She sought only to do good, but in the end it nearly claimed her. It did claim Berchem, the archer, for a time that was almost forever. She sought to change the curse, milady. She turned me into a child, as she did with Charles, as you well know. But it was for the purpose of evil that she performed saintly tasks, or so she thought.” He sat up slowly and leaned back, gazing down at the stone in his hands. “But only Weyden was able to win through that darkness and its seductive touch to reach her heart and open her eyes.” He raised his gaze. “As it was Baerle convincing James to surrender the song of the Bell, and Rickkter wrest Kayla away from becoming a deadly dragon.” “But what does this have to do with me, and Charles?” “You, milady, are... in danger. The shadow convinces those to whom it whispers that they do good, though they do evil beneath the beneficence.” He raised his hand, bearing the purple stone toward her, “You, and your children, are in the most danger. For Charles is mighty, and in the grasp of darkness I fear for the frailty of your flesh, though never your spirit.” Kimberly leaned back in the chair as if to distance herself from the sorcerous stone enwrapped in the complex filigree of her blood. “Breathe upon the stone, milady Kimberly. When you release your breath, think of Charles, and your love for him.” Fearfully Kimberly gazed back down at the stone not an arm's length away. Between the spider thread fine lines of Murikeer's work she could see her face gazing back at her in reflection, undistorted despite the craze of occlusions and cracks which rendered the crystal all but opaque. Leaning forward slightly, timorously stretching her neck toward it, Kimberly glanced up into Murikeer's dark eye once before back down at her reflection. Taking a slow breath, she pursed her lips. She remembered. The first time she met Charles was in his office at the Writer's Guild. She was newly arrived at Metamor, fleeing from... it didn't matter now. She had been mostly human but for the fully grown rat tail. She feared she was becoming a hideous thing. Vermin. A thing that skulked in dark places and ate the foulest leavings of man. A Rat. Charles called her beautiful. He introduced her to other rodents. He brought her food and bought her new clothes which fit her new body. He took her to watch the sun set over the mountains and for strolls through the castle gardens. He held her in his strong arms and comforted her when she felt she could never be loved. At first she had thought it all a chivalrous act to help a lady in distress, but nothing more. But, the look in his eyes turned day by day, some times hour by hour, from worry, concern, and uncertainty, to gentleness, devotion, and love. Charles, ever seeking her good, never failing to compliment her on her appearance, offered himself and all that was he to her. He sought her hand in marriage. He endured the long cold nights on patrol to provide for her. He went to Marzac because he loved her and his family more than his own life. That was her Charles Matthias, her rat, her knight, and her husband. That was the man she loved with all her being. Letting out a slow breath, she blew softly across the stone. “Eli,” she offered in silent prayer even as her breath left her lips, “protect the man I love, be he a rat as he is, from the evil that hunts him!” As her breath wafted across the polished rock the fire lines drawn in her blood faded, like breath fog on a window, until they were gone. Only when she leaned back did Murikeer's fingers curl about the stone. “What will that do?” she asked softly. “Nothing and, I hope, everything.” He extended his hand and turned it over, holding it steady until Kimberly raised her hand. Opening his fingers he pressed the cool pebble into her palm. It was small enough that even her own small hand was able to fold over it utterly. “Your blood and his are now mixed upon the stone. Yours with your breath, his.. by other means. It will allow you to speak to him. No matter where he is, how far away or how deeply enthralled, no matter how deafened by the shadow, he will hear you.” He drew his hand back and touched his ear with one long, stout claw. “Not here,” his touched moved to his brow, “nor here.” His hand then dropped to rest over his breast above his heart. “But here; heart to heart. Soul to soul.” He leaned back and rested his hands upon his knees. “It was the words of those whom loved the stricken that won through, always. That is our most potent weapon. But the shadow is sly, and may bring him to deafen his ears to you, and harden his heart to the words his ears might hear.” He nodded toward the stone she held. “But not against the words that pierce the heart and speak truly. But, that is not the least it can do, but I hope that it will be all that is needed.” She opened her fingers and gazed down at the stone, now appearing as nothing more than a polished river pebble. “What else does it do?” “If he should take his hand up against you, if he should turn his Sondeck upon you, it will shatter. In so doing it will unleash the curse of Metamor unalloyed upon him, reducing him to a rat true, in mind and body.” He held up a finger and raised his gaze to meet hers. “For a time, only, as the magic will fade. But hopefully time enough for you to escape, or restrain him for us to act more directly against the dark touch. Also, if you should take up a hammer and smash it, the spell will be unleashed and take him no matter how far removed he is.” “But what of my children!?” she quailed fearfully. She had seen the power of his Sondeck unleashed in the past, as she had that of Charles' friend Jerome. Murikeer smiled, though there was no joy in it, “I have giften them with baubles which they will find themselves holding most dear and close to them. If he should strike them the magic will be unleashed. I did not prick them as I did you, however, for the spell I placed therein is one that was exhaustive in its creation. He will see what he expects, should he strike them. An illusion most detailed to his eyes of their fate at his hands, but the baubles I have crafted will shield them from harm.” Kimberly dropped her gaze to the stone and swallowed. “You frighten me, Murikeer, but – I will keep this close, and hope that I should never find use for it.” “Would that I could but hope the same, milady, but I act in fear for you should these events come full circle for him as they have for the others who took up that terrible quest. I could only hope to have been as strong as they. For you, for him, and for your children I cannot stand idly by and simply wait with watchful eyes. I choose to act in preparation, though none of the others who also watch have knowledge of what I have done. I desire that none do, so tell not a soul lest the shadow hear, and gird itself against my wards. The others may also make their precautions. If they bring such to you, accept, please.” Kimberly clutched the stone close and heaved an unsteady sigh, “I will, Murikeer. And – thank you, for all that you have done, and still do, for my family. For me.” Murikeer smiled warmly, and for once the pleasure of his smile reached his good eye, lifting his whiskers as the shadow of his tail swept slowly from side to side behind him. “You are my student, milady, as well my tutor. As much a mother as the one I lost so long ago. To speak the love you have for him, merely hold the stone close to your heart and speak of it. He will hear though may not be aware of what it is he hears, but he will feel that touch within his own heart.” ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>