Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats
by Charles Matthias and Ryx
Pars V: Ascensum
(d)
Wednesday, June 23, 724 CR - Morning
After returning home I placed the stone on a
chain and have worn it ever since. Kimberly
lifted the stone pendant from her chest for just
a moment that Charlie might take a closer look.
The amethyst was dull but in just the right glint
from the witchlights he could see a flash of
color. Along one side a small crack marred its
otherwise smooth surface. He could not recall a
time that his mother had been without it.
It's not shattered, Charlie noted in a soft
voice as he studied the stone. So unless you had
Master Murikeer magic it back together again you
did not reduce father to a rat true. Does... does
he know what it is? After all these years?
I have never told him but I know he understands
in part. It is a quiet way between husbands and
wives. Some things are never said, simply known.
So it is with this and with Marzac. Your father and mother speak thus too.
He nodded and after rubbing the soft tip of his
finger across the narrow crack in the stone,
leaned back and let his mother rest it against
her bodice. A slight glance, a tilt of the snout,
a moment of profound silence, and so many other
little things he had observed between his father
Malger and mother Misanthe over the many years in
which narratives deeper and truer than any words
could convey were shared between them. So what
did you do, mother? I know it was another three days before... before the...
Before he went to seek the aid of Malger Sutt,
your father? Charlie swallowed and nodded. Yes,
I know of it. And I know what happened is the
foundation of their friendship. I know there was
no betrayal because Charles could never hurt me.
No matter what Master Murikeer feared, Charles
could never hurt me or you children.
Charlie's whiskers drooped as he tried to
remember anything from that time, but of course
all he could think of was what he had learned
from his sire the night before. What baubles did
he give us? I don't remember them at all.
Kimberly rested her hands in her lap and sighed.
They were colorful little river stones. One by
one they were all lost. I think you and
Bernadette both lost yours on the journey to
Sondeshara. By then it didn't matter.
He nodded and grabbed the chewstick he'd brought
with him. He nibbled on the end for a few seconds
before asking, So what did you do?
Kimberly lowered her eyes. I hoped and prayed. I
was scared... so very scared for you all. But
when Charles returned that night, he scooped you
all into his arms with such love and gentleness I
knew he could never hurt you. But.. Her throat
tightened and in it he could hear her pain. But
Bertram was different. I could see it in his
eyes, something I had never seen before. Hate.
Kimberly tensed, eyes closing tightly. Charlie
expected to see tears flow but her cheeks were
untouched. He gnawed on his stick and said
nothing. After a few moments his mother opened
her eyes and continued in a hush. He would kill
that little boy if provoked. I kept my hand on
the stone all that evening. And the next few
nights I made sure that Natalie and Bertram did
not come or left as soon as Charles returned home.
It's hard to believe... Bertram? Charlie shook
his head. Erick and he are practically inseparable now.
That frog is a good young man and a bosom
companion to your brother, Kimberly agreed, a
smile touching the edge of her snout. I think
your father took him on as a squire to make up
for what Marzac tried to make him do.
Though he said nothing, Charlie wondered if the
shepherd Silvas was given so much leeway in the
Narrows for a similar reason. How many others had
his sire hurt because of Marzac that he now
offered an unending stream of generosity?
So what happened next?
Kimberly sighed and clasped her hand around the
stone pendant again. I kept our home as best I
could with Charles off visiting the Narrows each
day. I prayed and I watched, and I held this
close and loved him as best I could. And then, a
few night's hence, everything happened at once...
It began with... I had... an unexpected visitor in my bedchamber.
----------
Saturday, May 12, 708 CR Eve of Midnight
The Lady Kimberly Matthias was roused by a sharp
crack and sat up in her bed abruptly. The
suddenness of the noise, so close at hand, had
elicited the beginning of a startled squeak from
her throat but the appearance of a looming form
towering at the foot of her bed bade that squeak
reach deeper and escape her breast in a full
scream of fright. Instinctively she lashed out
with the only thing that was readily, if not
easily, within reach; she hurled a spark of fire at the intruder.
Both scream and spark guttered away before
traveling far plunging the room into silence and
her sleep-fogged vision cleared enough to see
that the shadow was cast by a witchlight that was
not her own and the visage it illuminated was one
familiar to her. One harried eye looked down upon
her, recumbent in her own bed, with the gaze of a madman.
Murikeer! She cried out indignantly, snatching
the coverlet over her though her modesty was
assured by the shift she wore when sleeping. Why
are you in my bedchamber!? He had never gone
anywhere near the private rooms of the Matthias
residence in the many years he had visited, when
she lived in Metamor and the Glen both. To find
him intruding now, moreso while she was asleep,
sent a shock of fear and drear through her that
had nothing to do with the fright of his intrusion.
Grasping a bedpost with one hand he reached out
with his other. Come, milady, I need your help
and swiftly. The skunk hissed, his good eye
gleaming under the steady glow of his witchlight.
Murikeer, I am not in my modesty! Any you're in my...
I would wish any other manner, milady, but time
is of the utmost importance. His fingers grasped
beckoning at the air. Please, come with me now!
Charles' life may depend on swift action!
Charles? She sat up straighter, turning to her
right to where her husband slept. Only his side
of the bed was empty. Startled, she pulled her
legs off the bed and stood, still clutching the
coverlet close. What has happened to my husband?!
We have lost him, milady. Murikeer quailed in
fear as he stepped around the end of the bed and
reached for her shoulder. She shied away
reflexively, backing toward the corner between
bed table and wall near the closed window. We
have lost him, and I fear only you can find him
again. He approached no closer, dropping his arm
to hold his hand toward her, palm up.
After a few moments of indecision she stepped
forward and reached for his hand, gathering the
coverlet close against her throat with the other. Where are we going?
Not far, milady, but very far as well. I cannot
easily explain. Kimberly could feel the urgency
in the gentle grasp of his long fingers as she
lay her hand upon his. Where does he keep his vine?
In the stables, below, why?
We will need it. Helping her drape the long bed
linen over her shoulders and wrap it around her
Murikeer followed her out of the bedchamber and
across the living room toward their front door.
What of the children?
They hear nothing, milady, and sleep
undisturbed. He gently urged her toward the
door, haste writ in every fiber of his being and
bristle of the monochromatic fur tufting from the
throat and cuffs of his wardrobe. We will go, I
hope, no further than the stables.
Will they be safe?
On my life, Kimberly, on my very life.
Little mollified she preceded him through door
and out into the cool darkness of the Glen
commons. Circling around the tall buttressing
roots of the tree they descended a short distance
to the door of the stable in which Charles kept
his pony, Malicon, and the vine that sustained
him in ways none of them could fully grasp. But,
Muri, what do you mean you lost him?
After the others were touched by the tattered
remnants of Marzac we feared, as I said when I
gave you that talisman you wear, that Charles had
not escaped it. Drawing open the door he let a
dim witchlight bob ahead of them into the
stables. Malicon's head raised above the
partition of his stall and a curious snort
escaped his nose, short equine ears pricked
forward. Against the back wall the vine spread
from beat and post, shifting subtly in the light.
We watched over him, to see if the touch might find him.
We?
Garigan, myself, James and others. Leading
Kimberly over to a pile of straw near the back
wall he bade her to sit down, her long rodent
legs crossed as he had taught her during
meditations to clear her mind before his
tutelage. But he slipped away, and I fear that
he has been cast in the shadow through which we cannot see.
Marzac has taken him? Kimberly quailed,
clutching at the amethyst talisman Murikeer had
crafted for her, horror widening her eyes and flattening back her round ears.
Its shadow has reached out and touched him, we
fear. Sitting down facing her Murikeer reached
out to take her hands gently in his. And with
all of our forewarning we cannot pierce that veil. But you can.
I?
Yes, Kimberly, you. No one else, you. From this
place, with the conduit that I prepared.
Kimberly felt the cool stone in her hand, the
intricate tracery of dark lines crazing about its
smooth surface under sensitive fingerpads. A
quiet, whispering rustle moved about behind her,
a light touch brushing across her tail, but
Kimberly could not bring herself to move, to tear
her gaze away from the skunk's lone eye before her. What must I do?
Seek him. Murikeer nodded to the talisman in
her hand. The way to his spirit resides within
you. Folding her hands between his own he closed
them upon the stone. Seek him as you seek the
threads I have shown you; like fire, air, water.
Leaning close, the gaze of his single eye calm
but earnest, his voice intoned, His is a thread
only you can see; it binds the two of you.
Kimberly felt something brush her shoulders,
along her arms where they emerge from the draped
coverlet. Leaves appeared beneath her sight as
the vine wound about her forearms. Had she not
known of the vine that helped her husband live
the sight would have sent her into a panicked catatonia.
Even with that knowledge its serpentine animation
left her heart cold with instinctive fear. But
she did not move to cast it off while slender
tendrils worked about her wrists and between her
fingers. Murikeer drew his hands away ignored by
the vine. Taking a breath to steel herself
Kimberly bowed her head slightly and looked
toward her cupped paws, through the tight bundle
of leaves, and to the softly glowing purple stone
resting in the shadows of her grasp.
Expanding her senses she listened for the
telltale notes and subtle scents that Murikeer
had taught her. Where he could see threads she
could hear sound; the trill of birds, the pluch
of a harp's string, a chord of distant music.
Where Murikeer saw color she smelled spice and
earth. In her palms a deep, throbbing melody
rumbled in basso resonance. It was a complex
melody she had never truly isolated before, it
had always been around her, everywhere; subtle
but ever present, always underscored by a quintet
of brighter, dancing melodies in higher octaves.
One of the quintet had faded, long ago, to a
distant tremulous whisper but it had never truly been lost from the symphony.
But now, as she listened, the heart of the music
had become entangled with that faded whisper and
two had become jarring. Something harsh,
burdensome and discordant had taken up the faded
whisper and begun to mimic it. But it was
frightfully off key, dissonant and sharp like a
bow drawn too roughly across the strings of an over-tightened violin.
And the scents were of family; the stables most
profoundly. Malicon's heavy equine spiciness, the
wood and straw and light, soft sweetness of the
vine beneath her chin. Murikeer's personal scent
was a void in her physical senses but there was
the other scent, her sense of the magic about him
which he saw with his mage's sight was a complex
melange of aromas which her nose could not prize
apart. Mingled throughout was a scent identical
to that of Charles, her children, Baerle and the
others in the Glen; the curse. All such
complexities she had long ago learned how to set
aside so that she could focus on those scents and sounds she sought.
The dry acridity of fire, the scintillating
coruscation of water, the unique musks of her
husband and children. His and four others were
strong, each tickled her senses with fleeting
snippets of laughter and memory. The last was
subtle, almost lost among those others, but as
with the new strand of melody there was another
that lingered with the scent of that faint trace.
Somehow, despite being so strikingly similar that
the mere tingle of it brought forth bright
memories these was a dark coldness about it; a
rancid bite that made her whiskers fold back. She
could let the soft scents of her children slip
aside to focus more upon Charles' melody and
scent but, no matter how she plucked and pushed
with her inner focus, she could not separate the
corrupt scent and discordant tune mimicking something she had lost.
Ladero, Kimberly whispered, not lifting her
gaze from the glimmering purple stone. Dark
tendrils, the thread-thin roots of the vine,
traced about the stone, dug into the tracery that
Murikeer had etched upon it. My boy, my Ladero.
He is there? Murikeer murmured quietly, his
voice shimmering at the edge of her focus without intruding.
Kimberly let her eyes drift closed, bending her
ears and nose toward the tangled presence of her
lost husband. Yes, but no. Something. She shook
her head, unable to separate one from the other. Master Muri, can you see?
No, milady, Murikeer admonished gently. I
cannot see. That is why we need you to seek him
through the veil of shadow that Marzac has enshrouded him.
I I will try, Muri. But he is... so distant.
He seeks something, his thoughts are bent toward it.
Ladero. Murikeer's soft churr was a hissing
growl of irritation. That is his bell, his
hyacinth. That is the seduction that grasps at
his heart. The skunk let out a defeated sigh.
He is beyond us, Kimberly. Now, only you can
reach out to him. Please, try to call him back.
Let him know you're there, with him, wherever it is the shadow has taken him.
He seeks Ladero? Kimberly's hands wavered as,
behind her closed eyes, shadows began to take on
vague forms in the darkness. A moving, upright
form with a long shadow swaying behind it.
Beyond, a looming shadow like a tower or tree. Can he...?
No! Murikeer hissed warning. That veil none
can pierce and return! Do not let him go there, Kimberly!
But... Kimberly pressed on, striving through
her focus to reach out toward the shadowy form of
her husband in the misty darkness. He began to
appear more real, more substantial; scent and
sound assuming a familiar form. Before him,
reaching into the grayness of the heights, the
branches of a great tree stretched out overhead
while buttressing roots bulked like walls from the earth. He... he is there!
Kimberly, focus! She felt the skunk's gentle
touch. The shadow that seduces him lies! Reach
out to him, warn him of the lie!
As she drew closer to the monochromatic
half-dream form of her husband she sensed that,
while the towering tree and gray skies cast no
shadows upon the shattered ground over which he
trod, there was a single shadow stretching behind
Charles. Where it lay across the buttressing
roots it took on a smaller form that was not Charles but walked at his side.
The shadow's music shrieked in her ears with the
chord of Ladero and the scent was corruption and
rot, but Charles strove for it. It was her son!
But, it was not! Kimberly's heart withered in
fear even as she yearned to reach out and draw
her lost son to her breast once again.
But it was not Ladero. It was something other.
Some deadly doppelganger whose inky black talons
had reached out to grasp her husband's heart, blinding him to its corruption.
Charles! Kimberly cried out, unsure if it was
her physical voice that cast forth his name or
merely her own imagined plea. Charles, beware!
He is false! She strove toward the gray form in
the darkness before her. But the shadow abruptly
reared up, striving outward from the gnarled wall
of the dark tree's root, and cast a pall between
her and her husband. She felt it surge toward her
and felt the icy vileness wash over her in a
cacophony of ghastly noise and revolting stench.
In her hand the amethyst stone dimmed abruptly,
the tendrils of the vine enfolding it suddenly
blackening and shriveling away. The nearest
leaves also blackened, wrinkling into desiccated
husks and falling from the vine. Murikeer's fur
flattened in dismay, frustrated that he could do
nothing but witness the struggle through the all
too frail seeming rat seated before him hunched
over the dim purple glow in her cupped paws.
Behind her the solid bulk of Malicon stood
silently, like a wall, his head dipped over her
shoulder but otherwise unmoving. The vine draped
over his back from the wall of the stable,
entwining over Kimberly's shoulders and about her
arms. Even as its slender tips blackened fell
more rustled forward, fully enshrouding the stone.
After a few moments the fitful dimness began to
flutter with light, wan and pulsing, once more.
The shadow hears you, it knows you can pierce
its darkness! Call to him, Kimberly! Warn him!
Reaching out, Murikeer laid his hands upon her
forearms where the vine did not touch and lent as
much of his presence as he could. There was no
magic he could lend, her conduit was too frail,
to tenebrous, to attempt any aid.
All Murikeer could do was offer the reassurance
of his presence, like that of the quiet pony and
valiant but mysterious vine. Grateful for what
each offered, Kimberly tightened her grip on the
amethyst, shaken but not deterred. Her husband
was there somewhere. Her heart flowed outward to
find him again, listening for his melody,
smelling for his scent. And from her heart wended
a melody of her own within a prayer. She wasn't
even sure if it reached her tongue, but it was a prayer all the same.
Eli, help my husband. Help us.
----------
May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,
Charles Matthias
_______________________________________________
MKGuild mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/mkguild
