<html> <body> Sorry I forgot to post yesterday. It was a crazy day. Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars VI: Acceptio (g) Saturday, May 12, 708 CR His Master turned about the garden – there was no sign of the fissure through which they'd passed – until he was staring between two rivers toward a small rise beyond which the golden clouds were visible. A ray of light descended from the clouds filled with a scintillating radiance that left the patch of clover a cascade of different colors. Standing in the clover was a small human-shaped rat. The fur of his belly and arms was white, but his head and back were black as if he were draped with a cloak. His eyes, dark and warm, were filled with a clarity and benevolence that called to him. It is your son, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. Reach out and bring him into the shadow and you will be one forever. This is what you have been seeking. This is my promise fulfilled to you. Obedient, the shadow he was stretched forward to engulf the rat child. An adoring smile stretched the rat's whiskers and cheeks. The voice was high-pitched and touched by an occasional squeak, yet it rang clear through his Master's ears. “Dada! Look at Momma! She loves you still!” Balked, the shadow turned inward toward that single pinprick. Crushed into that hole in all that remained of his being was three images layered one atop the other. In each he saw a lady rat, beautiful and resplendent as the garden of light. Her hands and his were bound together by more than mere strength. Her voice, silent in the midst of the flames, now echoed within the melody of the birdsong that surrounded them. “Charles beware! He is false!” The words echoed as if cried by every little creature hidden within the garden atop the mountain. He felt the stirring of anguish press against him once more. You must choose, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. I have guided you to your son as I promised. That last crumb you have will be gone when you claim your son. If you do not you can never know the peace of shadow. You will instead suffer the anguish of flame for all eternity. I yearn to give you that peace, I have done everything I can to bring it to you. I have shown you what it will be like and allowed you a foretaste of it. But now you must choose. “Dada,” his son said in a voice sweet and simple, “listen to Momma!” Listen to me, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. Claim your son. She had called him 'Charles'. His Master called him 'Núrodur Nuruhuinë'. She told him to beware. His Master counseled him to claim his son for the shadow. She told him that there was one who was false. His Master promised him either peace or pain for his choice. Momma. The rat lady was the mother of his son. The mother who nurtured with love. The mother who enveloped life and bore such sweet fruit. His Master. The caster of shadow and the will that seared flame through all. Through the shadow he was a bringer of death. Through the shadow he shrieked. All else was char and ash. One true. One false. One choice. He turned his thought between Son, Master, and Momma. The idea was shared with his Master as soon as it came to him. I cannot claim my son if I abandon his mother too. I cannot! You do not need her anymore. You have me. You... Master... who are you? You know who I am. Now claim your son. It is the only thing you can do. He rose upward from the shadow, a being coated in the darkness from which he'd sprung, and turned once more toward the rat child. One arm stretched outward. The hooded rat child made no move to avoid him, but only gazed where a face should be and smiled. “I love you, Dada. But Momma's right. He is false.” He turned back to his Master and stared into his face as if seeing it for the first time. He was an Åelf of sterling beauty and porcelain countenance. Long silvery black hair descended across his shoulders and over ears drawn to exquisite points. Radiant eyes the color of a clear day's sky shone and shaped like perfect almonds gazed with implacable command back at him. Thin lips were set in a smile of magnanimous pleasure. There was no sense of age to him. He was permanent and ancient beyond reckoning. He was majesty itself taken form. He was false. Núrodur Nuruhuinë was the name of the shadow of his Master. Charles was the name of the rat boy's father. The two could not be the same. That was the choice his Master had set before him. But he was not alone in having a name. It unfolded within him from between the images as if they were leaves pressed in a book. It sprang forth from his thoughts like a thunderclap. The fruit shook and the leaves rustled as of a strong wind gusting through. You are Yajakali. As if Núrodur Nuruhuinë had thought nothing and did not speak the Åelf's countenance did not waver, his calm regard aloof in its stony neutrality. Unlike the forgotten concept of ant or squirrel, or the ragged memory he had pieced together to realize that he had a son through which he had suffered such torture to find, the name sprang unbidden, whole and clear within his thoughts. Choose, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. Be mine ever more and claim your son for our work. All will be set aright. No. I cannot. He felt an intense pain beyond anything the light had struck him with before. It ravaged him through every mote and he screamed. It was not fire nor was it ice. It was nullity. It was consumption and the very touch of uncreation that ripped him apart in that endless moment. Even the images of the lady rat, Momma, were barely held in check as they were eviscerated by that awful power. Turn and take your son! Through the torment, the agony, the absence of being that scoured him as a stone in a cataract the lady rat held his hand, unphased. That grasp upon his fingers was an unwavering anchor and Núrodur Nuruhuinë felt himself drawn toward it though the shadow clung to him like a shroud. Upon her bodice the stone remained, its cool purple light shrinking to a pinpoint of blinding brilliance. No. I cannot! Her hands were dismembered finger by finger until only a blank stump remained. One of her eyes became a hole of black. Take your son! For me! No! I cannot! An ear was sliced to ribbons and her nose was swallowed inward like a crater. Her incisors shattered into daggers. Claim your son! I am your Master! No! I will not! No! Momma's other ear was shredded and then removed entirely. Her left cheek was a cavity of black and both her eyes were caverns of shadow. Each whisker was yanked free. Only the stone remained untouched. There is nothing left for you but me! You are Núrodur Nuruhuinë! You are mine! Her face was finally obliterated by the fog of unmaking. He turned from that to stare into the stone hanging at her bodice. The flesh behind it had been riven free so it seemed only a beating heart gave it light. Yet he marveled. That light was enough. Within its fissures he saw her face pure and unmarred. He heard her voice singing to him as if from his very side. He saw her hands, delicate and tipped with little claws reaching out to him. He saw her tail swaying as she moved to his side. He saw her eyes bright with joy and overflowing with love. He saw children filling her arms. His children. Momma. His wife. Kimberly. Their family. Matthias. He turned to the presence in whose shadow he was trapped. No. I am not yours! I am Charles Matthias, husband to the Lady Kimberly, and father to Charles, Bernadette, Erick, Baerle, and Ladero! You are nothing to me! I reject you! I say to you, no! No! No! A titanic scream that stretched beyond reckoning and that welled up from depths unimaginable blasted him to the ground. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>