<html> <body> Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars VI: Acceptio (e) Saturday, May 12, 708 CR The beast-man spoke toward his Master; because he too stood in the shadow, the words were comprehensible even if their import was beyond his ability to understand. That his Master understood was sufficient for him. Still, curious and hoping that the images he felt drawn forth by the long-tailed beast-man would coalesce, he listened as they spoke. “I have passed the terraces of purgation and stand in wait of the glory prepared for me. You will not pass without my leave,” the beast uttered levelly, not moving from their path. “Will I not? Neither Nocturna nor Lilith even knew I walked in their realms! Tallakath thought me a mere mortal to experiment upon and was left standing like a fool in the wake of my passage. Klepnos sought to deceive us with his madness and yet it was he who deceived himself; unable to even speak my name. Oblineth learned of my coming too late to even hinder me. Revonos tested my strength in all of his rage within his arena of blood and was whipped like a dog for his arrogance. Suspira sought to stretch time itself to delay my coming and still I came and stole her quarry from her coils. Agemnos boasted he could defeat me and yet was too craven to even appear before me in his substance. Ba'al used every temptation he could muster to thwart my advance and yet still I reached Beyond. “Against such foes you would have been trampled under foot. Yet you now stand to bar my way?” The beast-man appeared undaunted by the recitation. “I spent and gave my life to bar your way. Why should I in the dawn of glory do any less?” “You gave all of that to bar my way and yet here I am. Can you truly count yourself amongst the most august of my foes? I can brush you aside as effortlessly as I might pluck a fallen leaf from my robes.” “And yet,” the beast-man noted with a bemused tilt to his snout and ears, “you have not done so.” He braced his long feet against either side of the narrow fissure and spread his fingers. “You are not as powerful as you believe yourself to be.” His Master folded his hands before him and shook his head ever so slightly. “You mistake my lack of action for evidence that I cannot carry through on what I intend. Rather, I have not swept you aside because you abide in my shadow. You are mine. You belong to me.” “I belong only to - - now. Your shadow has no hold over me.” The beast had uttered a name and, with it, Núrodur Nuruhuinë felt dread in the countenance of the bearer of that name, but it slid past his hearing as nothing more than a sibilance of tongue and lips. The music, muted but ever-present in the depths of his heart, soared in exaltation at the name. “It always does. The stewards of this place, your Master's servants, have done nothing to hinder me despite their power. They understand that I am not their concern. So too is it that all those who abide in my shadow are my concern. That alone has allowed you to stretch forth your paw as if you mean to thwart me. But you are mine. You will, when I have come into my kingdom, be loyal and true. And you will be a part of my kingdom. The only choice that is left to you is what degree of glory you will share in it.” “I want nothing to do with your glory.” “It is the only glory you can receive. You will leave this place in my company or you will be scattered. Neither Heaven nor Oblivion will reclaim you. I have given you every opportunity to follow me and yet you have refused. This is the final opportunity you have to make this choice again and make it wisely.” The beast-man bent forward slightly, large ears lifting over his head and turned toward them as if trying to capture some small voice well out of sight. His snout opened and a long sigh drifted forth, his body seeming to shrink with it and gain an even greater resemblance to a mere animal. The moment was brief and with his next inhalation he stood straighter again and regained a semblance of human stature. There was a distance to his voice and a subtle weight that left Núrodur Nuruhuinë uneasy. “There are only two choices that remain to be made. Neither of them belongs to me. I have made my choices. I have died. I cannot change them nor can I make any that are new. You cannot tempt me to follow you. You do not have that power anymore.” “You abide in my shadow; therefore you abide in my power. In that you are completely mistaken. But you are correct in one regard; two choices await us. The first choice belongs to you. Will you abandon your foolish contumacy and follow me as is your purpose in being? The second choice abides in me; it is this: how much time will I offer you to make this decision before I utterly destroy you for your refusal?” The unease he felt at the beast-man's words only multiplied with each declaration against his Master. He tried to take solace in what his Master said, but for a reason he could not name it also left him in that bewildering unease. He turned within trying not to hear any of the words bandied back and forth, cryptic and threatening, and discovered that there was something that he could listen to without discomfort. It was a delicate line of melody that at first seemed discordant but the more he listened the more he realized that had only been an illusion. The song unfolded as he listened, and the overlapping notes were spread apart so that each one sounded on its own. Together, the song gave him a sense of calm and stilled the unease. It drew him deeper within and further from the confrontation between his Master and the beast-man. A warm light that did not hurt opened like a flower and he saw the woman in lace again. Her blue eyes glimmered as they held him, her long whiskers glistened, and her soft ears were turned to hear whatever reply he had to offer. She was a rat in guise and human in stature. She was beautiful. The song came from her throat. He listened and gazed for one moment forgetting all else that was. She stood garbed in white lace that tumbled from her like cascading waterfalls. Her hands, delicate with short, neatly-trimmed claws, were extended toward him. In the hollow of her throat a glistening light shone with a vibrant purple hue. A light that did not sear but offered surcease from the agony, if but stepped from the shadow and into those outstretched arms. There was an invitation in that gesture, one both simple and eternal. It was an offering of self. She was offering herself to him. Who was she to make such an offer? He felt an ache inside; a part of him knew that he should know her face and know her voice. But there was no name to come to him. There was no name for anything left inside him. The question of 'who' was a question he could no longer answer; that had already been purified from him by his Master. But could he ask the question 'what'? In appearance she was both rat and lady, garbed for a great celebration, and bearing forth in song and light that was pleasing to experience. She was physically mortal bound together with an immortal soul. But that was her in isolation. There was so much more there to understand; she was intertwined with other immortal souls and this too defined her. In her glamor he could see little creatures so like her but each distinct. There were five of them holding close to her, and hints of many others not yet brought into being. And her offered hand, a rat's paw with thumb like a man, showed her bound together with him as well. He stood as she did, and extended hands of a similar guise to claim hers, something vast and fantastic beyond his ability to comprehend welling within him at the nearness of their touch. No other state of being was as exalted as that. Her voice, indistinct beneath the song, became clear when their flesh was a breath apart. “Charles, beware! He is false!” Attend to me, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. His Master's summons dew him out of that well of song and light and back to the top of the terrace reaching into the sky filled with golden clouds. The beast-man stood with arms outstretched and tail pressed against the ground, barring entry into the final cleft. Both he and the beast-man abode within his Master's shadow. Neither face showed defiance in their contest of wills. There was only opposition and nothing more. His Master's voice was assured and he felt its resonance cool the simmering pain that coated his substance. “You cannot remain against the purpose of your being. Whether willingly or not you will complete your purpose.” But, even with his focus once more upon his Master and warder, Núrodur Nuruhuinë felt the touch of that steady purple light, the reach of those paws so close. So close, he felt he turn and grasp her fingers, but he could not bring himself to. “And I willingly do so. But my purpose is not as you imagine. I am Felikaush, the very last of my kind to walk the face of our world.” “The final prophet of your line,” his Master said with an ever so slight nod of his head. “In this we concur. But you have badly misused your talents. You fought to preserve the broken world. I invite you now to do as you should have done at the beginning; cooperate with me to build and guide the world as it was meant to be. All your former transgressions will be forgiven. You can be a Steward to the world as it should be, guiding and foreseeing all that must be as the Felikaush who persists. Your founder was shackled in chains all his days because he refused me. Is that what you truly wish of yourself?” “I am already free. You offer me, and can offer me, nothing.” “On the contrary, you abide in my shadow. I am the ultimate arbiter of your fate.” The beast-man shook his head, long ears falling to the side to flop there. “You have no power over me and you never did.” He lowered one hand to touch the black shadow scar that touched his side. “This is all you ever had on me; injury. In life with my guidance and actions, and even after death with my letters I have thwarted you.” Letters. A kangaroo reached into a satchel and yanked out a fist full of letters and thrust them into a cast-iron stove where they caught flame. Tears streamed from the kangaroo's eyes and a mournful wail echoed from her tongue. A lady skunk leaped toward her with hands gripping the hilts of swords at her sides, but only bumped off the kangaroo's back. She was rewarded for her efforts with a firm kick that sent the skunk across the tilting bedchamber where she crashed against the wall. He rushed forward with a human at his side. The human grabbed the kangaroo about the back and hoisted her into the air. The kangaroo shrieked and kicked its legs at the ceiling, tail flailing up and down. He thrust granite arms into the flames and yanked the burning parchment from the stove. He tossed them to the side and then dashed handfuls of sand across them to douse the flames. Words were visible there in that moment that would with the gasp of a breath be charred beyond all recognition. “Charles, when you return to Metamor... greeted by... I know you will suffer terrible pain from this most unspeakable loss. It pains me to have to tell you this after all the years we have known each other. But there is hope... will learn anyway... was once court musician will aid you if you ask but this is the first time you should turn... if you do not refuse her, there is but one other... “When you have finished... belonging to... find your final opportunity to... all reckoning. If you fail to take... unleash... once infested... called forth in the cataclysm wrought by... will be the very last that this power seeks to... its last remaining vessel... “...listen to the words of your wife and the mother... You must not let her go... listen to her song and hold to her no matter... do not touch your son... will abandon everything to become... will doom him... the very monster that seared your eye... will become the first new... made manifest here. “Listen to me now as you have never listened before, Charles. Love your wife and never...” Charles. It was a name he knew. His Master's voice cut through his thoughts and the strange image that seemed memory. “You have been very astute in the use of your talents, but you have put them to poor use. There is now no more time offered you. Your last chance is before you. Núrodur Nuruhuinë, rise.” He lifted himself up from the pool of shadow at his Master's feet. His body was lanky and long arms descended from his shoulders. The mass of shadow split into legs that pressed him further upward from his safety against the exterior light. His attention was riveted upon the beast-man who let dark eyes shift from his Master to settle on him. “Oh, Charles! What have you...” Destroy him! The order was obeyed. He thrust forward at the beast-man, ever in the shadow, and within six paces reached the pitiful creature. Searing heat encased his substance and the shadow-flesh it not exhibited. His mouth agape, he wrapped his arms about the beast-man who had not moved from his place before the fissure. His fur was soft and would have been comforting to run fingers through had it not scorched the moment he touched it. The flesh beneath sizzled, blistered, and cooked within the first second of his grip. The beast-man could only stare with eyes filled with a profound sadness. He tightened his grip and stamped his feet atop the beast-man's. The fire burned through the sinews and shattered the bone. Another twist and he pulled the beast-man from its place and sent both of them toppling into the pool of shadow at his Master's feet. All of the fur was incinerated and the flesh burst into bright orange flame for a moment as the body curled inward. The skin stretched and gave way, pulling apart and scattering as ash. The bones cracked from the heat he poured forth, while the internal organs sizzled, sending up beacons of smoke blinding as incense. Through it all the beast-man never screamed. He did. His mouth opened wide and from within, with all the protest of metal aflame, he screamed. He screamed so loud that the crackle of bones and the whistling of super-heated air escaping the carcass could not be heard. His scream bent the grasses he had not burned. His scream made his Master smile. His scream. His shriek. Of the beast-man there was nothing but a blackened husk around the few bones that had not cracked open. All of the flesh was baked into those remaining pieces. The skull was no more, shattered along with both arms, most of the legs, and the tail. Unsatisfied by this, his fire swelled even more, burning everything beyond and touching even that which was deep inside. As more and more of the body was reduced to clumps of ash, he could see within the letter held in a rat's paws charring, words disappearing forever into black dust. All of it began to fade as if slipping beyond the edge of a great tunnel. And then there was no more beast-man. His scream ended, and he settled back in the shadow, the extreme of heat passing and settling to a sizzle in his flesh. The path through the fissure was clear. Very good, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. Your Son awaits us ahead. Come. Nothing remains between us. He followed at his Master's heels. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>