<html> <body> Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars V: Ascensum (i) Wednesday, June 23, 724 CR He bowed, a full goblet held adroitly in each hand such that neither spilled a drop, and she curtsied in return. Turning away she was soon engulfed by her small circle of ladies and retainers as she went to meet Bryn at the tourney gate. Stepping around the table, Charlie cast a glance toward Maysin who excused herself from the company of the other steppe-born ladies. He waited for her and when the zebra reached his side he favored her with a warm smile. “Thank you for accompanying me this day, Maysin. I would like a little privacy for the nonce so you may enjoy the rest of the day as you wish.” The zebra stopped and her ears fell flat against her mane. “Are you all right, Charlie?” He nodded. “I think so. It is just... what I do now I must do alone.” Her ears lifted again and Maysin's posture relaxed. “I leave you to it then, milord. Will you have need of my services tomorrow?” He blinked and then laughed. “I have no idea. Surprise me!” Her braying laugh echoed in his ears even after she had turned and headed for the main entrance to the High Box. Charlie slipped into the shadows beneath the box, still deftly carrying a full goblet in each hand, where the smell of hay and horse suffused his nose almost immediately. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dim light and the coolness of the shadows was a welcome respite from the growing mid-day heat. His whiskers and toes led him without error around the many pitfalls and stumbles in the dim light until his eyes adjusted, so it was not difficult for him to find the goal of his search. Standing upon a bale of straw and leaning upon the topmost railing of a stall box, Baron Matthias was idly scratching the brow of a powerful golden steed that appeared well pleased with the attention. Charlie made his way over and leaned against the stable wall nearby. “They truly are magnificent creatures,” the young rat observed. Charles turned his gave from the horse and down to his son. “They are not truly the same as those upon whose backs we crossed half of Galendor, however. Their blood is mixed with that of the Tagendend chargers.” Charles observed, accepting the goblet that Charlie offered. They sipped in companionable silence for a few moments, Charles turning to lower himself down onto the bale upon which he had stood. A saddle blanket covered it, making for a comfortable seat without the scratch and poke of naked straw. “I saw you and Erick have words. Is all well between you?” Charlie continue to lean against the side of the stable, the inquisitive snuffle of the horse within stirring the short fur of his head between the slats. “No,” he offered honestly. “He is still displeased with me for injuring you. As he has the right to be.” Charles sighed and nodded before looking up. “His anger will pass.” Charlie nodded, crossing to another blanket covered bale and sitting down to face his sire. “It always does. He believes I have done his house a grave injury, and humiliation. I admit that, but it will take time for my apology to make its way through to him. And still,” Charlie dropped a hand to pluck at the mithril crescent moon that hung at his breast. “Matters of faith,” Charles nodded with a moue of displeasure. “Will pass, as all things do, in time, Father.” Charles raised his gaze, one eyebrow quirked. “Father, now? Not sire?” Charlie laughed, warmly; ruefully. “On pain of applied switch, Father, from mother and Mother and even Father. They demand my acknowledgment of our relationship, and I admit my error.” From his seat he bowed across at the Baron before him. “And my anger, even were it fresh and burning within my breast, would have to admit the same. You are my father, and that I do not argue. It...” He sought the words, taking a long breath and letting it out with a gusty sigh. “And yet, it discomfited me for all the years of my life, calling you sire or father, yet having another to whom I turned when I needed to seek a Father.” Leaning forward he rested his elbows upon his knees and clasped the goblet between his slender fingers just as the princess had done minutes before. “And, you know, it was the wine that really did it.” “The wine?” Charles raised a brow, incredulous. Charlie nodded. “On my last visit, you brought out a fine Lorland vintage. One that must have cost a fine bit, and certainly one you would not have had at table otherwise but for myself and Bryn.” Releasing one hand from the goblet he waved in the general direction of the Keep. A distant, rolling note filtered through the walls of the stable, bringing a sudden hush to the rumble of the crowds beyond the dim horse-scented shadows below the Duke's box. “As we may have found at table here, as a daily norm. It said to me – I am different, I am apart. I am a Lord, and you a vassal.” The herdsmans' horns, high upon the slopes of the mountains around Metamor, filled the valley with their booming, solitary notes. “You are my son, do you not deserve what my House can offer?” Charles asked, almost defensively, though still curious at the direction Charlie took. Beyond the stables the notes of the distant horns changed, becoming a coherent musical movement. Even the echoes harmonized with the overall piece. Charlie shook his head, “No, Father, I do not. I am your son, and I deserve what your son deserves. Erick, Baerle, Bernadette – my siblings; brothers and sisters of your House – do not sup so grandly save on Holy Days, and my visits.” Leaning forward, Charlie reached out a hand that was quickly grasped by his sire. “Father, I am your son, not a Lord to you. To act otherwise...” He sighed, releasing his father's hand and leaning back. Somewhere closer than the rolling throb of the distant horns a bell tolled. Once, deeply, a lingering tone that faded slowly before the same bell rang again. Charlie's ears told him that it was vaguely from the direction of the Keep; likely the largest of the bronze bells in Metamor's Follower Cathedral. From somewhere in the opposite direction another bell answered the third ring of the first, its note slightly higher. Another chapel bell. The two harmonized almost immediately, slipping into the underlying theme of the horns smoothly. “To act otherwise stands me apart, and reinforces that distance from you.” A third bell pealed into the growing chorus of wood and brass, from a different direction, another new note. Closer, however, within Keeptowne where the second bell rang from somewhere in Euper. Charles tipped his head slightly, his goblet held lightly upon one knee. “Had you thought that it was brought to table for Bryn's sake?” “No, for he would not – he did not – notice the distinction between a House vintage or one of Lorland's best. Any such are available to him on a whim, he does not think upon the burden of cost it would place on a House.” Charlie shook his head slowly. “He is a royal, and it has made him complacent to some things. But Malger has taken me upon his travels; I have been feted at the finest tables of the south as often as a mean trencher of whatever a roadside inn could scoop from its stewpot. He has purposely traveled as nothing more than a wandering minstrel, because he wanted me to understand the low as much as the high. “That is why that wine cut so keenly, Father.” Charlie looked into his goblet for a moment before taking a swallow. “And then I found your dream, and that wrecked things entirely.” Charles stroked a paw across his chest with a snort and a nod. “I noticed. But you should know one thing, my son; that wine was not brought out for either you or Bryn. It was brought out for us, to celebrate having you with us so unexpectedly.” Charlie blinked and then lowered his eyes, claws scratching against the goblet resting in his fingers. “I... I had not considered that.” He shook his head back and forth, sighing in regret. “I had not thought of that.” Both of their heads lifted, ears perked, as dozens of bells, booming from temple and chapel clerestories to the bright, brassy dinner triangles suspended from Inn doors, filled the air despite the muffling stacks of hay and wooden walls of the stands. The crowds had fallen deathly silent, caught in awe as the city around them sang as it never had before. Charlie found himself smiling; Malger had spent five years working with the peasants, priests, herdsmen, and craftsmen through Metamor in careful secrecy to prepare for just that moment. He almost regretted missing out, though he had witnessed the Singing City more than a few times during their travels. Malger made it a tradition to pass through Silvassa during their festival of music whenever he could. An electric shiver raced up his spine as the first crisp, sharp note of a silver flute cut through the underlying theme like the blade of a fishwife's filleting knife. He saw his father shudder as well, whiskers back and ears up, his eyes closed. The first was soon joined by other winds; clarinet, recorder, more flutes in a rising rill. At the crescendo the music seemed to hover, the bells abruptly silent, everything fading into the throbbing echo of the distant horns. A cello began the descant; a slow dirge-like note into which the sibilant whisper of other strings slipped in and darted about, each improvising on that basic tone, distinct and individual bit in perfect harmony. Somewhere a tom thrummed a short tattoo for several seconds, following the sift darting theme of a single viola. Another drum, basso and deep, rolled in like a charging steed. Piping, swift, sharp, playfully rising and falling the winds returned, each finding a theme among the many strings, undercut by the rolling rattles of tom and tambour and the heavy thump of bass drum and, washing across the entirety of the orchestral movement, the ringing of bells. “Such was the raven and the rat,” Charlie said at length, during a long pall in the music where only wind and string sand a single sonorous note. He could only imagine what stupendous illusions were being crafted to accompany and accentuate what he heard. “A dark nightmare, weighing a single soul.” He leaned forward, his dark rodent eyes gleaming in the diffuse light of the stable. “What more can you tell me of it?” Charles closed his eyes, thumbs tapping his nose even as one of the golden horses leaned its head over the wooden slats and lipped at the curve of his ear. “What can I tell you? I will tell you of what lies Beyond the reach of Daedra. Listen well, my son, for I will never tell this story again.” ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>