by Charles Matthias and Ryx
Pars I: Disipicio
(u)
Doffing his clothing, casting the lot onto his canopied bed in a heap, Charlie crossed his room. Behind the bed was the door which led into the baths, to the other a smaller balcony much like the one beyond the common room, opposite this his sitting room where he could more comfortably and privately entertain his guests, and directly across from the entry door was both his reading room and one other. It was to this other that Charlie strode clad only in fur and the crescent moon medallion he always bore around his neck. Where he went none would be concerned with his manner of dress, his station, education, or family. Pulling open the door he stepped through into darkness.
The room he knew as well as his own flesh; it never moved, it never changed, but it was wherever Charlie needed it to be within the ever changing geometry of the Keep, the stone body of the spirit Kyia who maintained it. He had only seen that being, revealing herself in the form of a young woman or child in diaphanous gown, two or three times in the length of his life. Others, he knew, saw her far more often such as Elvmere who admitted that he conversed with her somewhat often. It was a small room, scarcely eight paces to a side, the floor strewn with simple pillows, the walls draped with curtains to dampen the sounds of the world without though there were no windows.
Moving toward the center of the room Charlie stopped before his shins caught the edge of the low table. He did not see it, he did not need to; the room's every inch was a comfortable memory. With exquisite care, he slipped his claws beneath the chain about his neck and lifted the medallion with its pearlescent lune and hung it from a small hook on the wall, the only thing other than the drapes that touched the walls. Charlie then crossed his legs and sad down upon the cool stone of the floor, gathered a couple of pillows close to either side. Just as he knew exactly where the table was, he knew exactly what rested upon it, and exactly where each item rested. A candle holder within which was a long taper, beside which was a flint and steel. There was nothing else in the room for nothing else was needed. He brought it to quavering life with a couple of quick strokes of flint and steel found with it and returned it to the candlestick.
Charlie further braced himself with pillows on three sides, his tail tracing a sinuous path between them. Shadows were not cast so much as pierced by the flickering light, revealing Charlie's clawed feet, brown-furred legs, delicately woven breeches, and his hands resting atop his knees. Beyond the candle he could see the silver crescent of Nocturna to whom he and his father owed their faith and in whose service they traversed the world of dreams.
Staring into the wavering flame Charlie slowed his breaths, allowed his body to relax and his mind to still.
Many nights he had spent in this room on some errand when an omen was to be given for good or ill, or a lesson taught to a particularly dangerous interloper in Metamor's affairs. And many nights Charlie had come merely to wander about the dreams of the many diplomats who'd come to Metamor seeking favors or concessions, or even secret knowledge with which to arm their distant lieges. By these dreams Charlie could advise the Duke and steer him and his family away from those who meant Metamor harm. And by these dreams he and his father would seek out the thief whose betrayal had nearly given an ingot of mithril into the hands of their enemies and bring an end to his larceny.
Rarely did he ever peer into the dreams of others for his own sake. This was a rare moment.
The tall candle whose color was lost to the darkness stood on a small table in front of him so that he could stare through the flame and at the crescent moon emblem on the wall beyond. His eyes traced its contours, the edge of the lune shimmering with each twitch of orange light. The rat's breath came slowly, measured and deep. Each inhalation took longer than the last. The soft pillows at every side seemed remote now.
The air blew across his tongue, past his incisors, disturbing the flame so that for a moment the crescent moon would flash brighter before the darkness closed around them ever more tightly. Charlie felt his body relaxing and sinking ever deeper into slumber. His eyes drooped until even the flame and crescent became indistinguishable blurs and then they closed.
The flame led to clam, the calm to its center, and in the center was focus.
But behind his eyelids was something other than a candle in the darkness. Where other men would drift aimlessly and with little purpose through strange vistas, familiar or not, as their body rested, Charlie moved with purpose and with control. He stood in a vast chamber with colonnades rising to a ceiling imperceptible in the heights. Heavy granite blocks fit tight together spread beneath the colonnades and his feet, stretching in every direction. He gazed through the luminous gloom, strange wisps of air that resolved briefly into faces, snouts, and beaks, before vanishing like smoke in a gust.
Already standing, Charlie began walking between the colonnades. Though any direction looked the same as any other, he knew enough to judge whether his path was valuable or not. The value was in thoughts, ideas, and particular events that replayed themselves over and over again. It was the only way to find a specific soul; follow the strongest thoughts that they would be thinking.
But when another sleeper was miles away, Charlie first had to in some sense get past all those sleepers who were between them. As he walked the colonnades dwindled in proportion, the ceiling sloping downward. The heavy circular blocks stacked one atop another were replaced with wooden beams and mortises joining above with plastered walls on either side. Braziers lit the way, while wooden doors were fitted side by side so that they shared the same hinges. Voices floated through the wooden portals, some soft as if whispered, others shouted in anger, in fear, in joy, while still others laughed in merriment or in coquettish foreplay. The rat, cloaked with an air of indifference, strode past all of them without even a twitch of his ears.
The posts and lintels continued to dwindle in significance until even the plaster was gone, replaced with open air and trees. The night sky glimmered with the sparkling of fireflies bouncing from one branch to another. The stone gave way to soft moss and fallen leaves. Despite his toes crushing the dried leaves, he passed silently through their midst. He ignored everything around him until the ground returned to stone.
The forest around him thinned as walls returned, stretching up between branches to form arches and doorways. He slowed his pace, whiskers twitching as he wandered into the maze of sleeping thoughts and vistas, each echoing from one of the portals half open on every side. This time he did not enter whenever he heard his quarry's name. He already knew what he was looking for.
The rock lifted him ever upwards until he returned to a familiar portal in the mountainside. He paused before the ivy covered arch with its purple blossoms only long enough to take a deep breath before plunging into the darkened passage. He'd found the sleeper he was looking for.
Beyond the portal he entered what appeared to be the Cathedral in Metamor. The stained glass windows showed nothing in particular but smears of color, while the statuary normally lining the walls were completely missing. A long red carpet was stretched out in the middle of the sanctuary beside which numerous Keepers stood waiting; he recognized a few faces but most of them were so nondescript that he could not force his eyes to linger upon them. Near the altar almost all of those in attendance were rats. Charlie walked toward them.
The cathedral stretched a great deal longer than even Metamor's variable geometry was wont to do in his treks through the castle. The altar, instead of coming nearer, receded as he walked toward it, the figures standing before it losing definition and blending together, though they remained the strongest and clearest figures in the vaulted chamber.
The distortion lasted several seconds before everything snapped into focus. At the altar garbed in so many robes and with a heavy miter and stole that he seemed to be holding himself up by his crozier was Bishop Hough. Before him he could see an elegantly garbed lady rat who he recognized as Bernadette, with his sire holding her arm. A fine but modestly dressed groundhog waited for her at the altar with a bit of wood between his incisors.
Not a memory yet, but a hoped for celebration that his sire enjoyed in his dreams that night. For a moment, Charlie felt a weight on his heart pressing him to leave this joy alone. But into that stirring of conscience questions pestered and then festered. Why did he give me up? What isn't my father telling me? What was the deal that was brokered? Why am I a Sutt and not a Matthias? His claws bit into his palms, his fur trembled, and the gorge choked his conscience silent.
Charlie stood behind them and held out his paws, pushing at the image of the gathered rodents at the front until they bent away as if they stood behind a curved lens. His eyes narrowed and his whiskers twitched along his jowls, as from up through the ground he dragged a pillar of rough stone. It churned its way through the close fitting slabs of the floor, and in the clouds of smoke that rose from the discarded rubble, the spectators and the walls of the Cathedral were lost to view. When the clouds dispersed there was nothing else behind them except a cool gray expanse that stretched an indeterminate distance to the horizon.
Hough was praying in the tongue of the Ecclesia, but with each new pillar of stone that Charlie raised into his side's dream the words were harder and harder to distinguish. He narrowed his eyes at the back of his sire's head which had been carefully groomed and cleaned, the curve of each ear bright and pink in the warm light of the cathedral, and spoke with a resounding echo that drowned even the eruption of the pillars. Remember the night when the bargain was struck. Strike the bargain again! Strike it!
Those large ears twitched at the words, and a moment later his head began to turn from his daughter's wedding to the circle of stones which were nearly complete. The groundhog and Bishop Hough both stepped back and vanished as pillars burst through the ground at their feet. Charlie stepped forward, took his sister by the paw, and guided her away from their sire who started turning his bewildered head from side to side. His sister, once so substantial and life-like, became a caricature of her self, almost a thing of light and feathers within her wedding gown, before she was nothing but insubstantial veils. He tossed these beyond the boundary of the ring of stones and turned back to his sire.
Remember the night when the bargain was struck. Charlie urged in a fierce undertone. Recall the bargain that was made! Awaken the memory forced into slumber and strike the bargain afresh!
His sire's eyes turned from bewilderment to fright as he spun about on his paws, staring at the stone monoliths with trepidation, swallowing heavily while his fingers clenched into firsts and his whiskers trembled. Though the light was diffuse and seemed to come from nowhere, a long shadow stretched from the rat's feet across the desolate rock-strewn ground. A broad, hulking shape as dark as shadow, but like the pillars casting none of its own, stepped from between the tallest of the stones, sharp claws scratching the ground. A tall, lithe figure slipped from between another pair.
Charlie kept on the far side from the trio, his eyes noting first the flamboyantly dressed noble that stood at Charles's side and put a restraining paw on the frightened rat's shoulder. Charlie's teeth ground tightly as he regarded this new revelation of Malger Sutt in his younger days; he had not featured in Charles' dreams before. Only then did Charlie realize that his viewpoint was different; he had occupied the younger Sutt's place in the memory, before, when it had been fresh. His sire had transposed Charlie for Malger in that remembrance but now, forced, he was drawing out more of the memory without the influence of his son's recent visit to color it. There was an air of nonchalance about Malger that Charlie recognized, though at the moment it seemed exaggerated as if there were nothing that could disturb his countenance. Neither figure seemed to notice the tall rat in occluded garments watching them with a scowl.
The third figure strode on long, slender avian legs, sharp talons scraping naked stone with each step. Its form was was inkwell black; a darkness so deep and lustrous that it seemed to defy the eye yet shimmered with deep highlights that were almost blue in the sunless light of the memory. Wind whipped at the explosion of feathers that draped over her shoulders as both cloak and wings. Corvid eyes of ice blue peered from within the feather bulk, surmounting a long black beak as it towered above the Keepers. He could not tell whether she wore clothes or not, so difficult was it to keep his eyes on any one part of her for long. She stopped only a few feet from the rat and marten and gazed balefully down upon them. Between she and they stretched a slab of stone as wide and tall as a man and worm smooth from years of use. Unfolding from the raven's shoulders vast wings stretched out to either side with a throbbing whuff of sound that banished all others but the sound of Charlie's own heartbeat. Those wings spread to the pillars at either side, blocking everything behind her, offering the two mammals no escape around her. They must brace her or flee.
The raven curled her wings forward as if she were about to embrace the two figures, mantling round them like a raptor over its prey. Charlie took a few steps to the side so he could better see his sire's _expression_. His sire's long tail lashed and his eyes bulged in awe at the massive bird. Her beak creaked open with with a creak like the unoiled hinges of a heavy door. You have come to ask something of me. The great black bird's voice croaked, lost somewhere between the petulant rough nagging of a crone and the belligerent rumble of a bullfrog.
Charles shook his head. This is done! I don't want to do this again! Charlie's father became suddenly two; one still gazing up at the bird in fearful awe, another reeling back, peeling away from the first like a shadow given physical form, one hand out-thrust toward the tableau he sought to escape. The stones suddenly wavered, age worn contours blurring into a fog as the retreating form gained form and solidity and the one left behind faded to a fast dimming memory.
Remember! Charlie insisted, reaching out with one hand and grasping at the air as if to draw the escaping dreamer back into the nightmare he had conjured forth. Strike it! Remember what you have forgotten, what you have hidden away!
The two rats for a moment shared only a single point of contact; the tip of Charles' tail, one younger and less care worn but adamant in the _expression_ on his face though awed. The other was older, worn by the passage of years and complexities of life, both its joys and its sorrows. At Charlie's admonition the elder of the pair clutched his head, shaking it powerfully as he sought to curl his tail around his ankles. For a moment Charlie feared he had gone too far, that he had pushed too hard, as the dream wavered but the raven did not. The elder rat, for some seconds, coalesced in greater detail as he wept into his hands. He fell back a half pace as if he sought to flee the memory, stepping into the shadow pooling at his younger self's paws. The younger Charles for a moment appeared to sink into his own shadow down to where the fur stopped at his ankles. But then he righted himself and the look of panic dwindled into determination. I have come for one last time to be with my son robbed by the grave.
The raven lowered her head so that tip of her beak very nearly brushed his nose. You come for a soul. She croaked flatly, ice-blue eyes boring into those of the rat before her. Have you a soul to offer in return?
Is that what you wish of me? A soul?
The ebony beak dipped in a slow nod. You have two that may be offered in recompense for that which you desire.
Malger watched all with implacable calm, almost as if it were he that was a statue and not sometimes Charlie's sire. The only motion Charlie could see from the younger recollection of his adoptive father was a slight turn of his snout from the rat to the raven. At the mention of an exchange of souls the remembered Malger barely lifted a single brow in curiosity.
What two souls might satisfy you? Charles asked in a somewhat timorous voice.
Your own. The raven said as she leaned her head back slightly as if it were an invitation for him to fling himself into the embrace of those night-dark wings and deadly looking talons.
My own? Charlies scowled, looking for the trap that he felt had suddenly been laid before him. What do you mean my own?
Surrender your soul to me. The raven's harsh voice croaked as she held out an arm, her fingers flexed, claws as black as her beak glinting in the sourceless light. Give up your life, then you can be reunited with the soul stolen by the grave.
Charles frowned and glared up at her. No.
As if expecting that answer she lowered her hand and chuckled. The sound sent a shiver racing down Charlie's spine; he had never heard the like before in his life; that doomful croak of tortured harridans upon the throaty thrum of taut-stretched ropes in the wind. Then set aside what you embrace and bend knee to the night, to me and my voice. Her wings spread further, stretching behind the stones in a black mist before curling forward to encompass the rat and the marten and their observer. Become my disciple and worship me as you would Him.
The rat shrank in disgust, his shadow swelling in proportion to the raven's embracing wings until it was larger even than the feathered harbinger of doom. Never! I will never worship any but Eli! The last word cracked like a thunderclap and Charlie felt the throb of sound pulse through his breast and sent him back a pace in surprise. The raven, however, seemed unfazed and Malger's memory merely rocked momentarily in place like a sailor on the listing deck of a ship.
And yet you come to me for help to bring for a short time a soul from His domain, The raven noted with dry amusement.
Charles ground his incisors together. What other soul will satisfy your demand?
Slowly standing to her full height the feathered night queen peered down the length of her raven's beak at him. You know of whom I speak.
Whom? Charles' whiskers twitched and his tail lashed behind him. Name the soul, and I will bear it forth to reclaim what has been stolen from me!
Blood of your blood. A soul stitched from the shrouds of your own. She seemed to loom larger as she spoke, leaning forward as if to stoop down upon the rat before her. The soul of your eldest. Once more she stretched out an arm, claw curling above the empty palm extended in askance. Tear his heart from his breast and bring it to me.
No! Charles bellowed. I will not kill my son! I will kill no one for you, harridan!
The raven's head cocked bird-like to peer at him with one glacial eye. Then you withdraw your desire?
Trapped, Charles' tail lashed and the shadow shifted about his paws though the light without source did not change. I do not. I cannot. He crossed his arms and stared down at the shadow stretching away from his paws. At length he looked up, voice resolute. I will not kill him.
Black wings rose and fell in a shrug. He is already mine. Her croaking voice intoned. Though you refuse to see it. I will have him, whether you bring him to me or not he will come, willing or no. All you do is deny him peace. She leaned down to bring her head level with Charles', tilting it the other way to bring her opposite eye to bear upon him. But you need not spill his blood to surrender to me his soul.
Charles did not shrink back from that baleful corvid gaze. Name it.
There is another whom you know, who walks in my shadow. The focus of her eye shifted and Charles' gaze followed it toward the unmoving form of the pine marten standing nearby. He brought you to me, did he not? He walks where you cannot, but the soul I desire can. And will, ere you give him up or refuse. The raven leaned in even closer now so that her beak pressed against his left ear. The blue eye peered over the top of the rat's head straight at Charlie, the first figure in the nightmare he had forced upon his sire to notice him. That is the bargain I demand; his soul becomes mine and that which was taken from you I offer in return, for a time.
Charlie's eyes widened and his jaw slowly unhinged as the raven stared at him with one eye over the top of Charles' head. Each word felt as sharp as a knife to the chest. Charlie trembled and fell back against the nearest pillar, his claws gripping its uneven surface to keep him from tumbling to the ground. His heart beat so loudly that he feared and in some way hoped the dreamer would hear it.
But his sire only swallowed and nodded. Agreed. He said curtly, flatly, cutting the air with one hand. I offer you my eldest for the return of my youngest.
Her beak darted forward and sliced through the soft flesh of his left ear. The bargain is struck, she cawed, the blood flecking from the tip of his beak across his snout. Charles winced but did not recoil. Tears streamed down the side of his face. The shadow at his feet stretched upward to swallow him whole.
Charlie pushed himself up from the pillar until he managed to stand. His entire body shaking, he flung himself through the pillars and out of his sire's dream entirely. His legs carried him down the mountainside and through the maze of doors, stone, and trees at a blind, reckless charge. He brushed hot tears from his eyes and curdled the scream that boiled inside his lungs. Around him the vestiges of dreams writhed in the proximity of his rage. Trees withered and snapped, stone faded and crumbled while the doors, those portals that would lead him into the dreams of others, slammed shut with echoing reports. His feet caught at roots and loose paving stones and finally he tripped and tumbled down the path. Every rock and branch that clubbed him as he hurtled past left a sweltering bruise as if he were not moving between dreams but dodging them as they crashed down about him.
Finally one root refused to yield to the fury of his passage and hauled him up short when it caught his toes. Charlie spun awkwardly and slammed his back against a rough-hewn wall of stone. Only then did the root turn loose of his foot and he was sent sprawling ignominiously upon his posterior with a sharp flash of pain from his tail. He landed at a turn in the path and cradled his tail which was swollen in three places as he tried to ease himself up. Injuries like this would fade quickly for him, but those brief moments he would suffer them as if he had been beaten by men with clubs. He took several shallow breaths and straightened himself out, hands pressing on his knees as he let his tail swing back behind him. A presence, like a shadow in a realm where no shadows were cast, fell over him.
Charlie sensed Her presence like a pressure building in his ears. You should not have done that. The corvid croak was admonishing, without the weight of doom that had been an unheard warning to the memory of Charles' dark bargain. You know better.
He turned back the way he'd come and there, hulking in the passage between dreams, was the raven. Her night black feathers glistened with highlights of midnight blue while her arresting gaze, now an azure not so glacial but uncompromising still, regarded him. She was some distance from him and did not feel threatening; her reprimand was cool as if his obedience or disobedience ultimately did not matter to her. He tensed and drew himself up in full measure and glowered back at her.
You bargain for my soul and that is all you can say to me! He shrieked with petulance at the portent of doom standing betwixt the dreams with him. 'I know better'? He snatched a brick from a wall without heed to the mortar holding it in place and hurled it at the bird. Leave me be! The brick flew true but slowed as it neared the raven's breast only to pause in the air before striking her. Calmly she reached up to pluck it from the air and watched the young rat storm away down the formless path that wove between one dream and the next. Charlie expected the raven to follow him and to reprimand him further. That at least would have meant his barb had sting. But she did not follow him, she did not stop him, and he heard no more reprimand from his Goddess.
The walk back to the colonnades was long and he felt every bruise lance with pain at each step. But return he finally did, and with only an exercise of will, he roused himself from that place. The candle had burned a quarter of the way, the wax pouring out one side to leave an intricate trail of stalactites on their way down. The pain was gone from his muscles, but he still trembled.
Charlie stood, kicked the pillows away, and walked around the small table to where he'd hung the silver crescent on the wall. His paws grabbed the lune, ripped it from the wall, and though he bent and twisted in incoherent rage, he could not mar the metal. With a gurgled scream he threw it at the far wall where it clattered and fell face down in the corner while the struck curtain shimmered. Only a glimmer of the medallion's edge was visible in the candlelight.
He averted his eyes and took several deep breaths to still his emotions. Was he angry? Was he sad? What was he feeling? Charlie wrinkled his nose as a trail of smoke brushed across his whiskers and with a flick of his arm knocked the candle over where it snuffed itself on the ground. Hot wax burned the back of his hand for a moment before cooling and hardening there. In the darkness he picked the wax clean and simmered.
He felt like a prize pig at market.
Charlie swallowed the curse that leaped to his tongue, found the latch at his side, and slammed the door shut behind him. He would find no sleep this night.
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In distant Narrows another rat found his slumbers dashed and any pretense at peaceful rest snatched away. Baron Charles Matthias lay wide awake in bed, face turned from Kimberly so that she would not hear him, sobbing into his pillow.
Memories, as horrible and sharp as any headsman's axe, wrapped icy fingers about his heart and squeezed.
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END Pars I: Disipicio
I hope you have enjoyed this tale so far. I will begin posting Part II sometime in March. Please let me know what you think of this and feel free to ask questions!
May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,
Charles Matthias
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