Divine Travails of Rats

Metamor Keep

 

Divine Travails of Rats

by Charles Matthias and Ryx

 

 

Pars VI

Acceptio

 

Wednesday, June 23, 724 CR, Early Evening

 

Both rats tilted their heads up. A loud cheer erupted overhead and persisted for several seconds before turning into sustained applause. Their whiskers and ears twitched as dust sifted from the rafters above to settle across their snouts and drape the golden horses. The Steppe horses shook their hides and grunted at the annoyance. The one that had been idly lipping at the fur between Charlie's ears as he leaned against the wooden slats of the horse's enclosure went so far as to stomp his hooves, sending another spray across the top of the rat's head.

The baron and his son brushed the dust from their fur and waited for the delight of their fellow Keepers to dwindle. Charlie grimaced and cast one irritated glance at the ceiling. “I expect that means the mages have finished their show.”

His father nodded and stretched his legs from atop the saddle blanket-draped bale of hale. “It will not be long before everyone begins to disperse. Are you expected anywhere, Son?”

Charlie shrugged and brushed the last of the dust from the soft fabric of his leggings. “I am, but neither my father nor the Duke will take their leave just yet. We have a little time.”

“That is all that we'll need.” Charles, still trembling, took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. The horses stabled behind him draped their heads across the wooden stall doors to watch him; their green eyes sparkled like emeralds in the lamplight.

When his father opened his eyes a measure of calm had returned to his countenance. His voice was low and full of regret. “I was lost for a time after stepping from the shadow and suffering that excruciating pain. I did not even understand at first that I had been denied the chance to tell my father what had become of his son. I knew only the shadow in which I journeyed and in which I smouldered.

“At some point we reached the next terrace but I confess to having very little memory of that place. What few images of it I recall speak of a place brimming with trees bountiful with fruit, fresh and ripe for the picking if anyone could have reached them. All of the branches were far overhead and the bark too slick to climb. None of those who sojourn there could reach them to sate their hunger. Of all that I saw there none of the men were known to me save the one also in the shadow, and even that one was not a man I knew but one that I had learned of after our triumph at Marzac.”

His father's expression twisted in distaste for a moment and one hand reached for the empty goblet only to slip back to his lap. His long tail thumped against one of the wooden slats as he shifted in his seat. The horses lifted their ears at the sound before turning them back to the rat. “I knew he was once the Bishop of Eavey and that he'd been taken by Marzac when sent to help exorcise that demesnes. But I had nothing to say to him and merely crawled on through the shadow.

“I did not return to myself until we reached the final terrace.” Charles breathed a heavy sigh and shook his head. Above them the crowds cheered again though the applause did not last as long as before. When only the creaking of the rafters overhead and the snorting of horses surrounded them, the Baron leaned forward, hands gripping his knees, toe claws digging into the hay beneath him. “My tale is almost finished, my son. What you hear now you cannot ever breath to another living soul.”

Charlie edged closed, ears turned to catch every word.

 

 

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR

 

Shadow moved and with it Núrodur Nuruhuinë. His Master's heels lifted from the stone path, swept through the air and set down again. Shadow moved and with it Núrodur Nuruhuinë ever at those heels. Stone sizzled beneath him. Air bristled at his passage. A haze rose in every direction. Pain subsumed all, and seemed more natural to feel pain than to form words. He thought in pain. He exuded flame. He dwelt in shadow.

But it was not enough. He sought a son. The idea was known, not thought, as Núrodur Nuruhuinë slunk across the ground, undulating with every vagary of rock upthrust in their path. This idea was known as a beacon is known and guides a traveler to safety. His Master knew the way. His Master was leading him to his son.

And then what?

The words dispersed like ash in the wind and Núrodur Nuruhuinë hesitated only a flicker of a heartbeat on the way.

The path narrowed to another fissure before which stood a sentinel of eyes and unpleasant light. A human soul stood before the figure while it removed all but the final “P” from his forehead. Master and servant passed by unmolested and unremarked.

The fissure seemed longer than all the others and for a time he felt his sinews burn with impatience. But there was no haste in his Master's footsteps. The same pace he had maintained for so long now was kept – steady but forward without hesitation or anxiety. Walls stretched upward on either side toward a sky filling with clouds. By the time those walls fell to his Master's ankles only scattered patches of blue remained.

The last terrace made a narrow path around the central peak that continued overhead. The peak remained wide of breadth but there no longer appeared to be any shelves of stone on which they could recline above. Clouds circled the upper reaches of the peak, obscuring it completely from view. Yet, to Núrodur Nuruhuinë, it was still insufferably bright; the clouds themselves were lush with a golden radiance that bathed the mountainside. In his Master's shadow he remained.

Figures moved about them in a strange sort of dance. Their pace was measured and slow while there were none about them, but as soon as they neared another soul they rushed to greet one another, bodies close but never quite touching, before springing away like lodestones turned to face each other. Into the pain an image unfurled.

 

A boy knelt in the grass as horses neighed and stomped their hooves some distance behind him. Tall grass bent under an eddying wind, ad the sound of a man and a woman's voice behind him carried on that wind. The boy could hear them and knew he was safe. Unafraid, his interest remained with the colony of ants he'd discovered. They streamed from a small hole in the ground, spread across a patch of earth gathering the crumbs of bread the boy dropped. Each kept an industrious pace, pausing only briefly in their tasks to touch muzzles, each to each, perhaps to seek news of their fortunes and journeys; or so the boy liked to imagine.

 

He marveled at the thought that was not pain. Ants. The souls moving to and fro were very much like those ants, though he could not imagine their purpose, their fortunes, or their journeys. Vastly different in appearance and physique, they had only the single “P” on their foreheads in common. Their lips moved and speech came forth but it was such a mishmash of tongue it made as much sense as the chattering of squirrels.

 

A large rat with a vaguely man-like shape reclined on a garden wall with a bit of parchment in his lap and a stopper of ink at his side. One hand gripped a quill with gentle fingers though the tip did not touch the page. Instead his head tilted upward, ears and whiskers twitching in pleasure as his eyes followed the antics of a trio of little red squirrels cavorting about the branches of the oaks. Their angry little squeaks and clicks followed them as they bounded from branch to branch. Finally, one of the squirrels retreated to a maple while the first two spat imprecations at the intruder.

The squirrel climbed down the maple and scurried into a discarded pile of clothing. The large rat watched in bemusement as the shirt and trousers lifted from the ground, a head, arms, bushy tail, and legs all sprouting out from the garments. A moment later a man-shaped squirrel stood fully clad with one of his arms sticking out the same hole as his head. He squirmed it back within his tunic and out the sleeve, blinking as he noted the rat. With a clicking-laugh he said, “None too friendly when ye their size, eh wot!”

 

Squirrels. Another interesting thought. Núrodur Nuruhuinë set it deep in the empty expanse within where he might ponder it again.

Even though the antics of the souls about his Master provoked two images that were not pain, Núrodur Nuruhuinë did not feel any greater compulsion to study them. They were souls that did not hinder his Master's path nor were they souls of interest to his Master. They scattered through the hateful light and cast no shadows of their own. Of what continued interest could they possibly be?

A thought swelled in him, powerful and towering above him, and yet also beneath him as the very foundation of being. In it was nothing more than a glance; a casual regard that searched him deeper than the sweep of an eye. His Master.

Pain of fire seethed about Núrodur Nuruhuinë and his substance scorched the ground, searing rock and burning grass to its roots. His reply to the unspoken question offered by his Master. He was ready to serve. He would always follow.

The presence withdrew from his immediate pain and the shadow continued to creep along at his Master's heels. Compared to the souls that rove about them in such cacophonous array, his Master was as a sentinel of power and purpose. His bearing carried an unmarred beauty and his steps remained patient and certain. There was no deviation in his path and no hesitation in his stride. He went where he willed. No force could balk him nor delay him. No force ever could.

And yet, their purpose was not of his Master's design. It was to come to the aid of Núrodur Nuruhuinë. He, the servant – no, the slave – in all his lowliness was being offered aid of the most magnanimous sort. Through what dangers had they already passed and his Master had seen him safely through? Was there any other of his stature that had offered him aid? Was there any sacrifice he could refuse to his Master now?

Was there any like unto his Master?

He could conceive of nothing in the fire and darkness that surrounded and imbued him. And yet, his consideration returned to the images he'd glimpsed. The ants and the squirrels were base creatures whose behavior seemed both erratic and organized. Thousands of ants could cooperate in complex activities even though they could not reason. Squirrels could perform dangerous acts requiring precise balance with reckless abandon and all to defend a cove of trees. How remarkable.

Nor was his consideration for those images restricted to the creatures that he witnessed within. Much like the souls that scattered helter-skelter about them, they were still creatures and as such of only passing interest at best. What was far more intriguing about the images he had witnessed was that they were perspectives. There was a participant in those images through whose vision he had gleaned the experiences.

But who were they?

Núrodur Nuruhuinë simmered through the shadow and lifted himself up from its pool, curious what else he might glimpse. A molten searing rumbled in his thoughts but he persisted, allowing the external world passage within.

The souls continued their mad running to and fro with no seeming direction or purpose. Their words peppered him in snatches, but this time he could discern some of the words.

“...her breasts swelled her bodice...”

“...strapping chest, oiled and glistening...”

“...eyes averted lest they see aught...”

“...she looked back! She looked back and now a pillar...”

“...a thigh tender beneath my hands...”

“...a fire kindled in my loins by her gaze...”

“...to be as he, ever faithful and vigilant for she whose hand...”

“...a new one, with fur of golden brown and a tail even...”

“...O Virgin of virgins! Pure, chaste, and full of grace...”

It was not any one statement that placed an image in his thoughts, but some of them together. Núrodur Nuruhuinë observed.

 

It was a vast hall with brightly colored windows stretching toward the sky and filled with people many of whom seemed to be half beast. A majestic march resounded in tones of glory and power. Down the main aisle the perspective focused, seeing the gathering throng but seeing none of them in favor of what emerged beneath a vaulted arch at the far end. There were two figures. Something pounded deep within that both pained and excited.

The larger of the two was a scaly beast with yellow eyes, long narrow jaws and wide flat tail that was garbed in heavy red robes. He stooped over the other figure and led her by the hand even as his other gripped a massive oarwood cane, limping as he made his way forward.

But it was to the second figure his attention fixed. She was a rat walking upon two legs, dressed in a resplendent white gown. It covered her chest in a low 'V' with white lace and ruffles climbing up her neck until they were hidden by the long veil that hung across her muzzle, her whiskers brushing at its ends. Around her ears were entwined tight wreaths bursting with bright green leaves and firm white bulbs.

Her foot paws were encased in dainty satin slippers, while white stockings disappeared beneath the ruffled hem of her dress. A train as long as she was tall dragged along behind her, covering her tail completely, the brilliant folds of fabric bundled along the edges nearly half-a-foot high. Her hands were covered by white gloves and in between them she held a bouquet of white roses bound tightly together with a thin silk ribbon. Upon one finger a single ring sparkled in the lofty light, radiant as any other finery.

So enraptured was he by the sight that he did not realize she had climbed the steps until she was there at his side. An arm ending in a gloved hand much the same as her own extended and their fingers curled around each other firmly and tight. He stared into her countenance which glimmered with an inborn light, wishing he could do nothing but gaze into her sublime beauty. In her rapturous embrace he had not an enemy in the world and there was none he could not forgive no matter how great the injury. A song, familiar at once, seemed to wreath her as much as the light.

And then she bent forward, a strange amethyst medallion about her neck that he had not seen before, and her eyes a strange deep blue through the veil fixed him tight with a sudden intensity. Words, her words, reached him. They carried great weight and in them he felt both embrace and a disquieting fear.

“Charles, beware! He is false!”

 

A searing light drove him back into the shadow. The image and all of its contents he buried deep within, deeper even than the industrious ants or capering squirrels. His Master stood between him and a wall of flame that crossed the entire terrace from the cliff of stone rising to an impenetrable summit to the precipice which descended beyond the reach of memory. Colors of scintillating yellow and orange danced together, braiding and knotting as they rose upward to join the clouds. The flames did not spread nor did they consume the ground from which they sprang. But into them many of the souls rushed, vanishing from sight, shouting toward the sky as they ran. Discordant notes echoed from all around and from within.

Núrodur Nuruhuinë recoiled deeper into his Master's shadow at the mesmerizing shimmer of fiery light. The heat struck them as a solid force, growing with each step that his Master took dragging him along behind. But it was not the heat that upset him; he scorched the ground in fury, struggling to keep as far from the hated light as possible.

Be not afraid, Núrodur Nuruhuinë.

But the fire is light! It is everywhere!

We must pass through this. You will be with me.

But the light! There will be no shadow, Master!

I always stand between you and the light, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. You are always in my shadow.

He wanted to be comforted by his Master's assurances, but the fire cast light in every direction. How could there still be shadow to keep him safe? His thoughts were only of the searing pain that was light. He yearned to see it extinguished; what need had he for light when he had the shadow!

And yet his Master's thoughts, so certain and present to him, were undeterred. You have nothing to fear, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. It matters not from whence the light comes; I will be a bulwark for you; I will blot it out for you. I always cast a shadow for my faithful ones.

Núrodur Nuruhuinë hissed as he drew himself as tightly as possible into the center of his Master's shadow. His master's pace did not slacken as he walked up the gentle slope toward the wall of flame that spread across the entire width of the terrace. Some of the souls rushed toward that fiery barrier and then doubled back beating their chests with their hands, and casting their eyes to the ground in shame. Others flung themselves headlong into the maelstrom of yellow and orange and cried out words that made no sense. None of them walked into the fire.

His Master did.

The flames did not part, but leaped upward from the ground to consume his Master. It capered about his white garment, rushing beneath the hem of the skirt and driving into the wide sleeves, only to emerge from the collar to pierce his silvery black hair. Yet not the least corner of his silken apparel was singed, nor a single strand of hair smouldered in that conflagration. His skin, alabaster and pure, was not even warmed by the blaze.

Into the flames his Master stepped and against him they had no power. Even his shadow, as promised, persisted across the ground behind him. Núrodur Nuruhuinë could only marvel as the flames rose up through the shadow, inflicting a heat beyond even with what he had scorched the ground behind them, without bringing any light into the shadow itself. He crept lower and lower within it only to keep himself as far from the light he could see in the flame. After a few of his Master's steps, the last of his reticence had passed and his nascent thoughts could return to the images he'd glimpsed within.

But it was impossible to dwell on the earlier images when all about there was a roar so loud he felt as if he'd been tossed into a forge.

Forge. The word had meaning. It did not bring forth a coherent image, but he understood its purpose: the smelting of metals to remove their impurities and to refashion them into all sorts of shapes. As the flames curled through the shadow he caught suggestions of objects that had names. He knew the names: sword, shield, helmet, breastplate, rod, spade, axle, kettle, knife, spoon, nail, horn, and so many others that he could not hold their names long enough to shape them. Impurities, too numerous to count, pervaded everything sent to the forge. Within that blaze they would each be drawn forth, one by one, until only a single substance remained.

That single substance was pure, focused, malleable and useful. A blade fashioned without a forge would break, a shield shatter, and a spade snap at the barest bit of pressure. Worse than useless; they were an impediment in the hands of their masters.

A notion opened before him into the depth of the shadow, drawing his focus from the disparate images that flashed by, forming for but a moment from the confluence of orange and yellow flame before dissolving into the ever ascending maelstrom of light and heat. The forge was more than a place to refine iron; it suggested some principle beyond itself. Everything could be refined. All things could be tried.

A servant even.

The question formed within him as he sank deeper into the shadow; his substance blistered in the light from the flame. The shadow seemed to expand like a lake swollen with melt and the pain seemed to stretch with it; it never left him but for a time felt remote as into his being slipped the presence of his Master.

Yes.

Yes, Master?

Yes, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. A servant must be forged if they truly wish to serve their Master. You are being forged, Núrodur Nuruhuinë.

He tried to recall all that he had experienced, but his memory seemed to be only a scattered remnant of images he'd glimpsed. There was a memory of a pain so intense that he flinched even from its recollection; beyond it he could not force his thoughts to go. How long had they been on their journey? How long had his Master been forging him?

And how much further did he need to go?

He felt a reassuring glimmer of amusement in his Master's thoughts. You have been my servant for a very long time, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. For that purpose you have come into being. All who come into being are created for that purpose but few are those chosen to be forged as you have been. They abide in my shadow. There they are forged to be my servants and to accomplish my will. That is your purpose, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. You have come far and been purified of much; only a little left remains and you will be perfected.

There was a deep approval in those thoughts, one that penetrated his being and made him yearn to feel it reach the very center of his substance.

What is there left to do, Master?

Know about you, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. What do you sense?

The flames that rose from the ground and stretched in every direction contained more than just his Master and his Master's shadow. Souls strode through that conflagration, their pace varying, but each of them all seemed to head in the same direction. Some moved quickly past with determined eyes fixed on the path ahead, while others crouched low and proceeded at a crawl, their countenances twisted as if a part of them yearned to flee back down the terrace. There was a deeper difference between their paces; he could sense it as a clutching on the part of those who crawled. Nothing was held by the souls who moved quickly. Their eyes were clear while something besmirched the rest.

They are leaving something behind, Master. Some leave it more easily than others.

Very good. They too are being purified. Those that hold onto the things they have seen and yearn to see that do not suit their master suffer greatly and make little progress. Those that let all that should not be within them burn away move quickly through the flame. So it is with you, Núrodur Nuruhuinë.

With me, Master?

You must remain in the shadow and partake only of my shadow. Yet you harbor things you have seen beyond the shadow that defile you. I must purify you of them. I must burn them from you.

Núrodur Nuruhuinë immediately thought of the lady rat in white who sang a song that seemed to stretch beyond the impenetrable memory of anguish, but pushed that recollection deeper and brought instead to his thoughts the image of the ants and the squirrels. There was a delight in the ants' clever cooperation and the squirrels' heedless capering that he felt a twinge of regret at losing. These he pressed forward, showing them to his Master.

Do you mean these, Master?

Yes. Those and any others you keep that come from beyond my shadow. Until you are parted from them you will be imperfect and your purification must continue. But these I now take.

Núrodur Nuruhuinë felt his being seared anew with an intense heat that permeated every thought. Into the dark reaches of the shadow he found no escape from the anguish that stripped him. He glimpsed the ants and the squirrels for only a moment before both were torn away like a page rent down the middle. The flames pierced his being and he in turn charred at the ground from which they sprang until both were black as ash.

Pain.

Violation.

Amputation.

Núrodur Nuruhuinë felt all pass until only a residue of the anguish abode within him. In his Master's shadow he remained while flames of ugly orange and putrid yellow cavorted around him.

Do you know what an ant is?

Pain flickered within him, but apart from a sullen string of notes that tolled low and quiet there was nothing to find that could answer the question. No, Master.

And do you know what a squirrel is?

Helpless, he could only reply as before. The word had no meaning for him. Nor, it seemed to him, did it have any meaning for his Master. No, I do not, Master.

What do you know?

Your shadow, Master.

For a moment he felt the presence imbue him and penetrate into the subdued pain that seared every mote of his being. There was satisfaction in that presence.

More yet remains but only a trifle. You are almost ready. Know, Núrodur Nuruhuinë, the fire of this place is at an end.

His Master thought it and it was true. The wall of flame that stretched from cliff to cliff came to an abrupt end only a few paces ahead of his Master's feet. He felt contentment in this and huddled within the shadow, creeping along at his Master's feet until the roaring flames were finally behind them. They emerged from the wall of painful light onto the ever-circling terrace along with several other souls. These souls lifted their heads to the glimmering clouds above and shouted boisterously. To Núrodur Nuruhuinë they were only making noise that he felt as ripples in his Master's shadow. There was no sense to it and so he ignored it.

However, the clouds were disconcerting. Before they had been far above, remote and unapproachable. But now they loomed as if bearing downward toward them and they were effulgent with a scintillating golden light that made his substance sizzle with renewed anguish. He crouched even more tightly within his Master's shadow but still their radiance burned him.

We are almost there.

The thought was clear and rich with meaning. More than a mere destination, it was restoration as well. It was goal and purpose. There. He yearned for it. He burned and charred the ground with his being and desire. But, for a moment, he knew not what that goal he strove for was.

Something; some tangible thing that pulled at his heart though his anguish and pain-wracked mind could not, at first, discern it.

A son.

A word, as bereft of meaning as ant and squirrel, but he felt it deep down within the core of the essence that made him what he was. A son.

Ro. Like the shard of a shattered whole; a single syllable. Desperately his mind snatched it up, turning it over and over to glean some meaning from something no more complicated than a modulation of the throat.

Lo. Another fragment, sharp edged and glimmering like the first but somehow not whole.

Did the strange vocalizations define what a son was, or were they simply the remnants of those things that his Master had tempered from the unfit mettle of his essence? Mulling the oddities over he strove deeper still.

Dare. Ahh, another discarded bit of memory that shone as glimmering clear as the others; shards cast from a single whole that had been stripped, crushed, and forgotten. In his mind, even as he crept across the ground in the shadow and cringed from the searing agony of the light, Núrodur Nuruhuinë toyed with the sounds.

Ro Lo Dare. Grist in his mind, rough within his mouth.

Dare Lo Ro. A stone beneath the shadow; sharp edged and irritating.

Each mental examination met with as much sense as ant or squirrel or even of Self had he once a vocalization the defined the untampered, flawed substance that he had once been.

Lo Dare Ro. He stumbled for a brief half step, too frightened of the flame to succumb to the startled realization that the substance of those three syllables had not been forged away as so many others had. Somewhere, at the very edges of his hearing, the quieted music rose to a triumphant crescendo bent upon a single word.

Ladero. A son. His son! The son he sought, the reason he undertook the forging and tempering that would make of him what his Master wished. To see his son, the one called Ladero. A memory, crystalline in the perfection of its clarity, suffused his emptied mind and he grasped at it as a drowning man to a buoy, drawing it into the center of his being and secreting it away as he had the music and the image of the beautiful lady in her gown.

But what more must he relinquish first? The question unsettled him in a way he did not expect it would. His Master had already proven to him that once he'd been purified of some little thing he no longer was capable of recognizing it or even regretting its loss. So why did he hesitate? His Master did not.

His disquiet did not go unnoticed by his Master. He felt the presence, immense and searing with its power, boring into him and with it more than mere meaning or words, but immersion.

 

He stood in a courtyard of moss-covered stones and old statues positioned along low garden walls. The statues had once been of men, perhaps heroes and nobility of whatever kingdom this had once been, but now their faces were obscured by the wear of ages – if not missing altogether – while limbs either lay in jumbled ruin at their feet or were only half present. These titans of men were of an age now dead and already forgotten but for the remnants against which time and the elements worked their inexorable power.

Nothing could be seen beyond the courtyard but silhouettes of taller walls of decaying stone that also suggested a dilapidated state equal to the statues. Overhead a moonless night peeked through a heavy veil of cloud. Everything persisted in a tranquil gloom.

But he was not alone in the ruin. No name could be given, but he knew that there were others subsisting in the shadows that stretched from statue to garden wall and back again. Each seemed familiar as if they were not truly indistinguishable. Separate each of them were in that they occupied different locations within the courtyard, but they had a likeness that made him wonder whether they were merely different manifestations of the same being or form of being. He experienced them rather than sensed them, for like he, they were part of the ever deepened shadows covering the ancient ruins of man.

Into the vision appeared a new being, one of light that shone bright and cool and yet did not dispel the shadows cloaking the graveyard. Rather, he seemed to make each shadow darker and more present, as if they were more than just a place where light could not reach, but a tangible substance that had him as their source. The being of light was clearly not a man, but something more refined and ancient.

He stood in the presence of one who had seen ages rise and fall and yet who remained the same. Another age was past and now he guided all again. This ruin, though he could recognize nothing of it, was not merely an expression of the being's power, but also of his magnanimity. He turned to the others with him in this being's shadow and understood.

Each and every fellow creature of shadow felt so similar to him because they were all incarnations of the same being, provided not just once but time and time again in such profusion that they covered all of this ancient city with the substance. They were all so familiar to him because they were his goal, purified as he had been of all that kept him from the being of light.

His son, profuse and multitudinous, but his son.

And there in this fallen place here none dwelt but the shadows they could find their protection from hated light and merely be together. More that his own will desired this, but that of the being of light as well. His Master.

Nothing else cold distract them, for there was nothing left to stand between them. Father and son could dwell together and always under the generous suzerainty of their Master. Nothing else need be but they three.

 

The impression lingered longer than the others he'd witnessed and with it before him he could only continue forward as they climbed the terrace. He left no blade of grass standing in his wake, but burnt all down to the roots as he dwelt on the image. He would have what he truly desired once his Master had finished tempering him; once he had been purified of all but his Master's shadow.

The image did recede somewhat by the time they reached the end of the terrace. Before them stretched one last wall of stone and fissure rising upward to the very tip of the spire. A being of eyes and wings stood before the portal, its finger effacing a letter from the forehead of one of the souls so that no more stain remained. But this soul was different from the others they'd encountered on the terrace. It was not the strange shape he bore, with long ears that turned about his head, a boxy snout and flat nose, a thin chest and arms, wide hips supporting a long tail and large feet with three toes each tipped by claws. Seeing beasts that walked as men did struck him as natural though he could not quite discern why.

What made this soul special was that he too stood in his Master's shadow.

Núrodur Nuruhuinë regarded the soul with a measure of curiosity he had only offered to the images that had come to him. A strange song seemed to pass into the pain of his thought as he noted the dimensions of the beast-man. He felt a glimmer of another beast-creature, this one of a rat adorned in lace, intertwined with the melody, as well as something hidden within the thought. Something exalted yet concealed. He felt an ache, not born of fire, pain him from within at this thing he could not know about the song, the lady, and then beast-man that stood in his Master's shadow.

The beast-man hopped toward the cleft on his long feet, heavy tail drooped behind him as he leaned forward with each bound. None of the steps took him from the pool of darkness that stretched forward from his Master's feet to welcome him. While his Master walked confidently past the being of eyes who seemed to shimmer with a spectral light Núrodur Nuruhuinë slunk past in the safety of shadow, pressed as tight to the ground as he could, leaving a trail of charred earth in his wake. Once they were past he lifted his substance from the shadow to study the hopping beast-man again.

At the entrance to the cleft the figure had stopped and turned, extending his arms to block all passage beyond. His eyes, a hazelnut brown, glowed as if the moon at its most brilliant shone through them. The shadow undulated at his feet, and veins of black danced upward across the russet fur of his legs, thighs, and concentrated in a black mass punched into his left side. The wound appeared grievous and was the first real wound he could recall witnessing upon a soul traveling the terraces; yet it did not seem to hinder the beast-man as he stretched himself across the path to bar their way.

And to the surprise of Núrodur Nuruhuinë, his Master slowed his pace as he approached, sculpted face betraying nothing. Nor did his thoughts indicate any displeasure at this act of defiance, at least none that he shared with his servant crouched at his heels. Uncertain what he should do, Núrodur Nuruhuinë waited and watched, studying the beast-man and wondering why his countenance seemed familiar. Images, disconnected and haphazard brushed through his inner being, but none lingered long enough for him to identify why this one was familiar to him, only that he seemed to have been important.

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 could 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 now 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.

 

 

Wednesday, June 23, 724 CR, Evening

 

For a moment Baron Matthias lowered his head, resting one hand atop his brow, eyes narrowed to dark slits as if afraid he would see something else should he close them entire. Charlie gnawed on his chewstick as he stared in wonder and a bit of horror at his father. That the guide's intentions were for ill he had suspected almost from the start, but the depths to which he had pushed the man who'd given him life surpassed all but the vilest of dreams he'd witnessed; he could count them on a single hand and still have fingers untouched.

How had his father even regained sanity after this, let alone gone on to father many more sons and daughters and found a noble House?

“I know that look,” the Baron said with a biting whisper. “I know it, Son. I've seen that same turn of the eye in my looking glass many a morning when my dreams bring it all back. How could I still be a man... or even a Rat!”

Above them they could hear the sound of many feet and a good number of hooves milling about. Some of the Keepers were leaving the stands to refresh themselves at the many vendors scattered around the tourney fields and in Keeptowne proper. Others remained to converse with friends and family they had not seen in months about the spectacle mages and musicians had finished not long before. His adoptive father, the Duke, and the foreign King were likely among those who were taking their leave; they would retire to the Keep with family and retinue for one last evening of private festivity. Charlie would be expected to join them.

He wouldn't dare leave his father's side now.

“Aye, Father. I want to know.”

Charles lifted his head, ears tilted back. Even the horses descended of Rheh lifted their snouts to regard the dust settling from the planks overhead and the many footfalls. “There is no more time tonight, is there?”

Charlie shook his head and dug his claws into the honey-coated chewstick. “Please, Father. Finish your tale. I cannot let that nightmare be the last thing I hear of your struggle. I cannot let you remain... Núrodur Nuruhuinë!”

But his father took a long, deep breath and rose from the bale of hay. He stretched out one arm to give the nearest horse an affectionate pat along the cheek. “Thank you, friend.” In the dim light, Charlie thought he saw the dull glint of granite just at the sleeve of his father's tunic. The moment was brief as the Baron turned toward his son and gestured for him to stand. “I will not let you miss another night with your friends, especially when you have already promised to accompany them this evening.”

“How did you...”

A warm smile crossed his father's cheeks even as he tapped one of his ears with a claw. “My days of scouting are behind me but I do know how to use these still. Now come. Our family is returning to the Keep as well. I can tell you the rest as we walk. There will be so many others celebrating that none will overhear.”

Our family. Charlie found his chest swell with sudden anticipation at those two words. He stood and stepped swiftly to his father's side. Before he knew what he'd done he wrapped an arm about the shorter rat's shoulders. “True enough. Now tell me, Father, how it was you finally broke free.” The horses whinnied and stomped their hooves as together they walked from the stables to join the festive throng.

 

 

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR

 

The final cleft began as all that others had with layer upon layer of rock rising up on either side to frame a sliver of sky overhead. The sky was a shimmer of gold and silver as if the clouds were reliquaries of light. The light cascaded into the fissure so that planes of subtle radiance stacked one on another as they ascended. Each new level they touched filled him with a more intense burning that forced him tighter and tighter against his Master's heels. Despite the walls on either side the shadow contracted for the first time since they had begun.

Núrodur Nuruhuinë hissed at the light as he sizzled beneath its touch. Neither made any noise that he could discern, only the sensation of a fiery anguish digging ever deeper into his substance and his willing an expression of that pain were known to him. Like a thousand brands his substance was scoured, digging beyond the surface and penetrating deep within. He felt himself shrinking with each new band of light they crossed, and with it he felt something slip away.

A layer of crimson brilliance stretched across the fissure and through it his Master climbed. He followed, unable to do anything else, and felt himself stricken anew. For a moment he could still hear the sound of the beast-man's voice as he argued with his Master. Confidant in mien and yet incomprehensible to him in intent, it had persisted with him even as he had seared the life from his soul and rendered him less than ash. Yet through the light he passed and the fire burning deep within him stripped him of that sound.

It is necessary, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. You must be purified of all that which is not of the shadow. Do not fight it, but allow it to happen.

His Master's presence was immediate, rushing upon him as the vanguard of fire. In any direction his thoughts and sense turned there he found his Master. And with the touch of his Master's thoughts came the image of the darkened garden again, and the companionship of his son altered to be as he was, a creature of his Master's shadow. The coolness of the image, the emptiness of its expanse, was a respite from the touch of light and fire that was his only lot in this place.

And it will persist as long as you hold back that which is not of the shadow.

All of it, Master?

All of it.

They crossed a threshold of vermillion in their climb. The fissure walls pressed tight against them. The fire delved deeper, searing every thought. He tried to recall the shape of the beast-man but even conjuring the image filled him with an agony that sent him cowering into the darkest corner of his mind. There he found the solace of the shadowed garden. From a distance as vast as his existence, he witnessed the shape of the beast-man disperse from his thoughts. A sullen disquiet touched him in that recess, but he could not quite determine why or what it had been he'd even been trying to remember.

Every piece that you hold, Núrodur Nuruhuinë, must be relinquished. The Felikaush is gone but for his words. Of these too you must be purged for they are not of the shadow.

Uncertain, his thoughts framed words in return. But they seem important, Master.

What they are and what they seem are two different things. They do not come from my shadow and thus they are not to be trusted. Listen to me. Obey me, Núrodur Nuruhuinë, as you have sworn to do. Relinquish them.

A thin veneer of sunlight stretched across the fissure and through it they passed. The fire which had not abated in him delved further. The letter that he'd glimpsed in the moment before natural flames had consumed it and made it all but illegible became incandescent in his mind. He recoiled from it as every mote of its memory scalded him, pressing him inward. The blinding light spread apart, the paper shredding into fragments that stretched into a band that circumscribed his substance. Everything beyond it was lost to him. Everything that touched it was an agony pure without relief.

He yearned to shriek but he could not.

A place entirely draped in my shadow awaits you. Let it go.

There had been words there. Important words.

The ruins of all that would not submit await you. A place to be intertwined with your son. The words only distract you.

Master...

I am.

Please...

Let them go.

He curled ever inward, turning his attention into the deeper darkness, thoughts seeking the balm of the promised shadow-garden. The brilliance evaporated though the fire remained just beyond its edges. He trembled within the shadow, wondering what he had held onto that he'd thought so important. There was no answer to the question. There couldn't be. Whatever it was had been utterly effaced from him. A different question arose: what remained?

Only one image seemed to linger deep within his being. A vast hall filled with people of all shapes, humans and beast-men in every variety though what they were he could no longer name. Down the main aisle proceeded two figures, one a reptilian beast and the other the rat lady in the alabaster-white dress. In her bodice nestled a medallion of river smoothed amethyst. Their pace was measured, but she seemed to reach his side in moments. Words came from her mouth, distant and difficult to hear through the roar of flames. She offered him a gloved hand which he took. There was nothing else not of his Master's shadow.

He sensed a boundary of verdant light. His Master's pace seemed to quicken even as the path through the fissure grew steeper and tighter. They broke the next wall of light so quickly that Núrodur Nuruhuinë did not even have time to recoil. Another conflagration raged against his being. Gaps were torn through the single memory he possessed, rending it into scattered moments.

His Master wished him to relinquish them all. His Master sought to reunite him with his son. Why then did he not wish to let go of this impurity as his Master desired? He cast his thoughts across each remnant – a brief glimpse of the two figures walking down the aisle, scattered faces from the gathered throng, the elegant white dress, the two gloved hands holding one another, the stone of purple, the words, the rodent face hidden behind a gossamer veil – before letting one go.

The faces of the many creatures who had gathered for the celebration – whatever celebration that it was – slipped from his thoughts to be incinerated at the periphery of his being. He would have whimpered if he could.

The agony...

It will persist as long as you are impure.

Master... I cannot bear it...

Then you must let go, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. It is the only way.

They continued to climb. There was nothing more to be said. He did not even look at anything beyond the shadow for there was only light of every painful hue. Inscrutable impressions crisscrossed the walls of the fissure, and there was a verdigris that had been missing before but was now too remote for him to ponder. The clouds above that he knew must be there were veiled by an impenetrable anguish. All that was left to him was his Master's thoughts and the recluse of shadow and the scattered images of the rat lady.

An azure nimbus bore down upon him. Into it a cobalt flame seared throughout. Silent, unable to even hiss, the first of the images was snatched from his grasp. The twin figures of the rodent lady in white and the reptilian beast in red scattered to a vapor that slipped free. He felt constricted within an ever-narrowing space, the shadow dwindling until it was nearly beneath his Master's feet. Where was there left for him to turn?

The fissure is nearly at an end, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. Your son awaits. You will bring him into the shadow and together you will be purified and in my peace forever.

Your shadow, Master. In your shadow.

Yes. In my shadow.

Master...

I am much more than that, Núrodur Nuruhuinë. I provide all that you need. My thought will be your thought. My will shall be your will.

In your shadow.

Yes.

The fires consuming him seemed a little less when he repeated his Master's thoughts. And yet, even though the agony was impossible to bear, he kept looking back at the images he still held. They were paltry and few and all now of a single figure, a lady with the appearance of a rat garbed in white. Her fur was rich as cream and her eyes a deep, dark blue. Her hand held his own. His hand gripped hers. She spoke to him but he had no more ears to hear.

To her and her alone he willed a single question into being: why do you matter to me?

A layer of indigo light rushed across him and with it the dress of alabaster was gone. The excruciating pain consumed all that he was. He could not even squirm out of its way for it was everywhere. The shadow had contracted so that he could feel his Master's feet step down upon him. There was nowhere left to turn. He had to let go of this rat lady or be completely consumed by the flame of light.

Without choice he let slip another shattered image. It vanished in a brilliant dazzle of winking stars. His awareness turned to the next and saw her hand in his and he stopped. The hand holding hers was not black, nor was it a furnace that scorched the ground with its passage. It did not burn all that it touched. And yet he knew that it was his hand. How could that be?

She mattered to him. He did not understand how or why, only that she did.

Three images remained of this lady. Their hands clasped, her face moving with spoken words drowned by the flames, and the stone nestled in her bodice that seemed to repeat the words. There was nowhere he could turn except inward. He pressed the memory down into a single mote, shrinking and shrinking them into an infinitesimal space at the very center of what remained of his being. The flames pressed in on him but with each new advance he shrank that image, one overlaid atop the other, until they were once more safe from his Master's forge.

Through a purple barrier they stepped and the flames drove down into the tiny point at the bottom of a well stretching infinitely inside. The roar consumed all in his mind. He saw nothing beyond the shadow in that moment. He heard nothing but the searing of every last fiber that still had form. He felt nothing but a constant misery. And over it all was his Master; powerful, dominating, omnipotent, his true lord and master. All he was and had been was effaced that he might exist solely for him.

He was Núrodur Nuruhuinë. He was shadow. He was death.

He shrieked.

The flame erupted from his being and lashed out in a wave that rushed across the top of the fissure and out along the pinnacle of the mountain. Lush grass bent in that wave, and the branches of trees rattled, leaves rustling in its passage. Waters burbling in their passage paused for a moment before resuming their course. Even the golden clouds filling the sky seemed to tremble.

There was no more pain. His Master's thoughts were firm and he felt them shape his thoughts. Awareness filled him as he glimpsed all about them through his Master's vision. He heard through his Master's ears. He felt the air against his Master's skin. He could smell the sweet fragrance through his Master's nose. Like a shadow should.

His Master stood in a lush garden filled with trees burdened by plump fruit pleasing to the eye. Little streams meandered through the trees, with bright flowers decorating the bank in long rows. Grains waved in the wind where the trees parted. Vines climbed upward along tall stone markers festooned with grapes and olives. Figs, pomegranate, apples, oranges, and dates hung from branches and filled the air with a heady scent of plenty. Grass and moss a vibrant green covered every mote of earth so that no dirt could be seen. All was lush and vivacious. Birdsong filled the air with melody.

It is now time to claim your son.

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.

 

Charles opened his eyes to a vista of branches flush with broad green leaves and weighed down by plump, purple figs. His nostrils were filled with a panorama of fruits, flowers, and the subtle hints of people beyond counting. A warm light bathed him and he felt a gentle breeze rushing across his fur and whiskers. Blades of grass provided soft cushion and they tickled the edge of his scalloped ears and along the length of his tail as they bent in the wind.

A familiar voice speaking in the southern tongue reached his ears. “Rise, my dear friend and brother. You are not yet finished here.”

It had been nearly ten years since he had last hard that Eaven accent. Yet he knew it better than he knew his tail. “La... Ladero?” He climbed to his feet, toes splaying in the grass, and saw before him a black-robed man with olive-skinned complexion, short, dark hair, wide nose and cheeks and large brown eyes. His hands were crossed at the waist, but on his chest was a shield with a white palm in which was inscribed a red sword. No stubble touched his chin even though he was clearly in his late twenties.

The man smiled, and there was a assured beauty there. A glow encased him as if he himself were the source of the light that brightened the garden. “It is I, Charles. Do not be afraid.”

“Ladero...” Charles stared at the man in dumfounded awe. When he was only seven years old, on the final journey crossing the Darkündlicht mountains on his way to Sondeshara for the first time, he had met three other boys: Krenek Zagrosek, Jerome Krabbe, and Ladero Alenez. They had lived together, trained together, learned together, ate together, prayed together, and schemed together. Inseparable friends from the very first, their skills progressed at the same rate, each of them raised from Yellow to Green, Green to Blue, Blue to Red, Red to Purple, and Purple to Black always at the same time. Such synchronized advancement was rare in any of the mage clans of the Southlands, and it further united them in ways that no other friend amongst the Sondecki could hope.

Of all of them, it had been Ladero who had taught them of Eli and Yahshua and what it meant to be a prayerful and faithful Follower. It had been Ladero who had once considered a vocation to the priesthood amongst the Sondeckis. And it had been this Ladero for whom he had named his youngest son born with the power of the Sondeck.

His snout broke into a smile and he stumbled toward his friend, arms extended. “Ladero! I... I never thought I would see you again!”

Ladero lifted one hand and slowly shook his head. “You cannot touch me yet, Charles.”

The rat stopped, bewildered and blinking. “Why not?”

“You are still in the shadow.”

That one word woke in his mind a chain of memories stretching backward through nightmare. He felt anew the fire and pain that scoured him of his identity. He remembered the anguish that each deeper pit of the Daedra's realm had inflicted. He felt the terror of Lilith's midnight forest and plain. He quivered from the suffering endured by the prisoners of Tallakath. His stomach turned from the insanity of Klepnos. His flesh trembled at the memory of Oblineth's ice. His Sondeck tensed at the merest taste of the rage of Revonos. His body threatened betrayal at the recollection of the temptation of Suspira. He yearned to weep at what Agemnos forced him to do to Baldwin. And he was overwhelmed by horror at the very presence of Ba'al.

But all of it was there merest whisper of emotion compared to the total recollection of all that he had done and had done to him beneath the guidance of 'his Master', the ancient Åelf Yajakali. Charles collapsed on the grass, heaving as he stared down his snout at his black arms. The stain he'd received from Baldwin's spirit remained there. His eyes burned as he sobbed. Nothing coherent came from his tongue though he desperately tried to speak.

A little voice called to him. “Dada. It will be okay.”

His heart tightened at that sound and he turned on his hands and knees. Standing in the patch of clover in the midst of brilliant rays of light descending from a small cleft in the clouds above was his youngest son. The black cape of fur that draped his head and shoulders shimmered in the gentle breeze, while the white fur of his chest and legs glimmered a white so full and resplendent that his eyes hurt just gazing at him. “My son... Oh, my son... I have done terrible things...”

“Why not embrace him?”

He knew the voice. It startled him to hear it after witnessing the two Laderos, one of his closest friends and the son he'd lost, but it was present just the same. He turned his head even further, and saw a smear of black crossing the grass toward a tall figure. The alabaster robe was now tattered and threadbare as if it had been used as a funerary cloak for centuries. The silvery-black hair was disheveled and full of tangles. Little scars marred the once pristine flesh as if he'd been raked across a field of rock. The majesty and power that had once belonged to that figure and that had led Charles through the hells and up the mountain was gone.

But the voice remained. Compelling and reasonable, he felt a deep urge to listen. His legs shifted and he turned once more toward his son.

He is false!

Charles stopped, straightened himself and shook his head. “My friend bids me not to touch. You bid me do so, Yajakali. That is reason enough. I will obey you no more.”

“Charles,” the battered Åelf said with an imploring sweep of his bruised and bloodied arms. “We want the same thing, you and I. We want our families, our very people whole. This child was stolen from you. My entire people were stolen from me. I have sought these many years to bring them back. I have sought it with all my being. Everything we have experienced together... was to bring you here. Have I not done what I said I would do?”

He nearly fell to his knees again at the mere suggestion of what he'd endured. “You brought me here, aye. But in what condition? Look at me!” He lifted his arms and felt a fury build within them. His fingers curled and his claws raked the air as if rending flesh. “You are a liar! You did not bring me here for my sake! You brought me here for your own! Go back to hell where you belong!”

“Dada!”

“Charles!”

Both Laderos shouted as one, their voices stricken as if Charles had condemned them. He shrank back, pressing his black hands to his face and feeling his claws dig against his soft flesh. He wanted to rip the black from his fur, but all he could do, his rage struck dumb, was to continue to weep.

“Please, Charles,” Yajakali pressed when neither Ladero spoke. “You must take your son. You must! I am Yajakali! I am the purpose for our being! I am the reason we are here at all! You must take him or all that is will be undone and the very creation itself will be thwarted! I must have them back! I must have them, Charles! You must do as I command you! Now! There is no more time!”

Charles tightened his grip until he felt pain in his face. “No!”

He felt the presence touch the edge of his mind but where he once could slip inside and reshape the rat's thoughts, now there was no opening. That door had truly been shut and in that moment Charles was grateful for it. Instead he saw deep within the face of his wife gazing back at him. Could he ever stand again if she did not hold him up?

Rebuffed, Yajakali bent down to grab him by the shoulders. He felt the Åelf's touch but there was no supernatural strength to his grip. Misha had a stronger hand than this dethroned prince. Still he shook the rat , trying to pull his hands from his face and to pull his knees from the grass. “You must come claim your son! You must! You must! I need you to do this! I cannot go on if you do not! Do it! Do it! Do it!”

Charles shrugged his shoulders and with one elbow pushed him aside. There was nothing more Yajakali could do. Impotent, he tilted back his head and screamed toward the clouds above. “I was Prince of Jagoduun! I was promised everything! I was promised! Why will you not give it to me! Why!”

Ladero, Sondecki of the Black, killed five years ago by a Shrieker's dread touch, stepped forward and placed a hand upon Yajakali's shoulder. “Oh Prince of Jagoduun, your time is finished. A grace beyond measure has been given you to persist as long as you have. But it is finished. All have rejected you. None more remain through whom you can act.”

Yajakali would not look at the Sondecki, but kept his blue eyes, harried and bloodshot, focused on the black rat. “Charles, you can give me everything back. You can.”

Ladero pressed lightly upon the Åelf's shoulder and he stumbled backward toward the child who had not moved from the patch of clover at the edge of the garden. “Charles is no longer yours. He has rejected you several times already. Nothing you say or do now will change his mind. Look at yourself, Prince, see what is left. You have nothing to offer him or anyone else. Nothing.”

“No!” Yajakali tried to squirm from Ladero's grip but the Sondecki could not be shaken. “you... you humans destroyed everything! You invaded my home and slaughtered my people! You! You should all be animals like him! You should all serve me!”

“Prince Yajakali,” the little voice of Charles' son stilled the torrent of hate erupting from the frail Åelf more surely than the Sondecki's grip stilled his body. In that moment even the wind seemed to keep still. Not a leaf, branch, or blade of grass stirred as they waited for that voice to continue. “I am so sorry to hear what happened to your people. It was terrible. But please, Prince Yajakali, take heart. Your family faced their death bravely.”

His boy smiled and for a moment Charles could see a strange, jagged red line that ran from the top of his head down his chest and abdomen. The rupture disappeared as soon as the boy spoke again. “But my Dada and everyone else now had nothing to do with it. They are innocent. Please do not hate them, Prince Yajakali. Please forgive.”

“Forgive?” Yajakali coughed the word, but nothing else came forth. He spluttered incoherently for a moment and then cast his gaze toward the prone rat. Charles turned his head aside to gaze at his son.

Little Ladero had not even been two months old when Charles had been forced to leave for Marzac. He, like his litter-mates, had begun to crawl about but nothing more. Kimberly had told him that they had begun to speak by late Summer and had a mastery of words that would be the envy of a two-year old at only five months. His little Sondecki child had asked for him even as he lay dying in his crib.

Yet now he looked to be as old as the rest of his children, though with a wisdom and comprehension beyond even their advanced abilities. This child whom he had boasted of on the terrible journey to Marzac, of whom he spoke with such love and hope, had been snatched by death and yet now stood before him speaking with such gentleness to the very creature who was responsible for atrocities committed across the span of eleven thousand years.

Charles would have strangled Yajakali and torn him to pieces were he able. His dead son sought to console him. Charles lowered his head to the vibrant grass and felt nothing but shame. In a whisper he made his tongue work. “Listen to him, Yajakali... listen to him.”

The elder Ladero twisted Yajakali's shoulder, forcing him to turn toward the boy standing in the clover patch. The clouds billowed downward from above, circling that side of the garden so closely that the little rat's tail danced in its mist. The light was brilliant as if the sun itself were veiled inches behind the soft mass. Both Charles and Yajakali averted their eyes as the child was wreathed by that light, a light that burnished within his fur as well. But the dead Sondecki smiled and gazed into it without pain.

“The extraordinary grace given you is almost spent, Prince Yajakali.” Ladero's voice thundered and each tree in the garden and every vine laden with grapes seemed to thrum with it. “The time for your choosing is at hand. The little saint, beloved Ladero, will guide you. Go with him now and you may yet avoid the damnation you sought for the world of men.”

Charles's son stepped from the clover patch and held out a paw, his nose quivering and whiskers twitching with a rat's smile. “Please come, your highness. I have so much to show you. Come. Take my hand.”

His heart held still in that moment. He could only watch Ladero his son stretching forth a glowing arm covered in fur and a hand tipped with little claws toward the creature that had caused Charles and his friends such misery and loss. In turn he saw Yajakali's aged and beaten blue eyes stare at that hand with an incomprehensible expression. No more did the Åelf look back at the rat who he'd nearly conquered. He only stared at the child and the clouds of light behind him.

And then, impossibly, Yajakali lifted one arm. His fingers, bruised and swollen with calluses, rested upon his son's outstretched paw. Little fingers curled upward and the smile on his son's face stretched with beauty. Charles felt his heart swell so that his ribs groaned. The Sondecki released his grip and the Prince of Jagoduun stood, slow and unsteady. Ladero guided him toward the patch of clover and the clouds. The light splintered in a million scintillating rays, parting the clouds before them. Only radiance shone within.

The little rat called toward them in a sweet voice that knew only joy. “I love you, Dada!”

“I love you, my son!” he cried out, his voice barely a whisper in the chorus of light that thronged them. His son's eyes sparkled even as he stepped into the clouds. Yajakali's face was lost, shadowed by so much light, but he too stepped from clover to firmament. The clouds closed behind them and they were gone.

As he took one breath after another, the clouds dispersed from the edge of the garden and returned to their place far above. Charles lifted a black arm before finally crumpling against the ground, overwhelmed and unable to speak. He wept, the only thing he could do.

The grass bent near him and a black cloak swept over it. Ladero sat cross-legged beside him and offered him a smile. “Your son, Charles, has been tasked with something you will spend the rest of your life in vain trying to comprehend. He is offering redemption. A single tear of contrition is all it will take; Yahshua died even for that one. Bear him no ill will for his fate is no longer the concern of any living creature below.”

Charles managed to still the racking in his chest. He brushed the tears from his eyes and forced himself to a kneeling position a few feet from his friend. Lifting his arms he stared at them, confused. “Why am I still covered in soul tar? Am I to be like Jessica, stained black as shadow all my days?”

“The black is not upon your flesh; about this Yajakali did not lie. When you wake from the dream you will be as you were before. But the shadow is no longer beneath you. Look.”

Charles glanced down at his knees and saw that he crouched upon bright green grass and even the root of a fig tree. He climbed to his feet, lifted one paw after another, and marveled in a relief too great for anything but an exhalation. “It's gone. The shadow is gone!”

“His hold over you has been completely broken. When he took your son's hand he relinquished his claim on all mortal flesh. Now all that remains to see is if he will repent of any of the sins he has perpetrated in all the ages of his being. I cannot describe to you the contest that is taking place for his soul. Your son will offer him every love for more ages than man can recount.”

Charles lifted his head and nearly bumped his nose into a heavy fig. He stretched out one hand, felt the rough bark of the tree, and then leaned against it. Despite its pits and irregular shape, he felt no discomfort. “I feel as if I have been in this dream for countless ages of men already! How long, Ladero. How long has it been since I last looked upon my wife? How long has it been since I made that dread bargain with Nocturna? The bargain! Oh no! Charles! My little Charles!”

He fell back to the ground and beat at the grass with his fists. “Oh, Ladero I have been a fool. I have been worse than a fool! I traded my boy, my precious boy, to nearly be Yajakali's shadow! My boy, my boy!” He wept anew, seeing clearly the stone tor, the frightful raven, and his little child stretched out on the cold table with her talons draped over his chest. His heart, a moment before swollen with love, now shattered with that memory.

Ladero's voice was soft and gentle. There was no doubt in his words. “He is safe, Charles. Your son is safe. Nocturna cannot lay any claim on his soul by your hand. He has already been Immersed and that is a touch that cannot be erased. Love him dearly. You have not sold him.”

“But...” he murmured, even as he tried to gather his composure. It took all his strength to force himself to lean against the tree. “But, what if Nocturna tries to claim him?”

“She will not. But, your son will know her regardless. This much you must know, Charles, for your son's sake. Understand first that this was not the doing of Nocturna. Her power, frightful as it can be, and soothing as it can be, is limited nevertheless. But this she knew as now so will you. Your eldest son can Dream.”

Charles blinked. “I do not understand.”

“He can enter the dreams of others, touch them, reshape them, and speak in them. He has already been in yours.”

He swallowed and knew it to be true. Only a few days earlier he'd been woken by his eldest from a nightmare. Little Charles had not been scared by a dream of his own, but had been frightened by the dream of his father. He slumped against the tree. “What shall I do?”

“You and I were born with the Sondeck. You will know what to do for his sake.” Ladero lifted his eyes to the clouds and a small smile played at the edges of his lips. He said nothing and yet an entire conversation seemed to take place in that moment. The smile broadened to cross his entire face until an expression of profound and complete gratitude filled it. “And whatever happens, do not be afraid for him. He will be protected.”

“Ladero, why is this so? Two of my children given such gifts. The one taken by death, and the other a gift I do not understand? What gifts do the other three possess? Will other children my Kimberly bears for me also be gifted?”

But his Sondecki friend only shook his head. “That is not something I can tell you. Only four things remain for me to say to you. First, you asked how long you have been on this journey. When you wake from the dream it will be only a short time since you laid down and slept beneath the minstrel's flute. Time is one more creation of Eli's and it passes here as He wills it to pass. You are on the cusp of eternity here, Charles. You should not expect it to be like a journey by foot, horse, or sea!”

“Then I haven't truly abandoned my family at least,” Charles said with a sigh. “What else must I know, Ladero? I know so much now that I wish I did not.”

“These last things will be a comfort, my friend. You did not ask, but I know it is in your heart. This solace I can give; you did not destroy any of the souls you sought to harm on your journey. Our old friend the seller of ancient books did not suffer from your touch; even now he enjoys the beautiful vision denied him in life and the company of family long lost. Lay no blame on yourself on their account.

“But very soon you will have the chance to aid two who suffer greatly. One of those you have already met on your journey. The other is a dear friend we both know. When he comes to you, the time will have arrived for you to set aright the wound that broke us all. You will know it, never fear.”

Charles grimaced but nodded. “I trust you, Ladero. I do not understand but I trust you.” He lifted his eyes to the trees, the fruits, and the bountiful clouds above that gleamed with a golden light. “Will... will I see this place again?”

Ladero stood and offered him an enigmatic smile. “That is for you to decide, Charles.” He turned his head to one side and a distant cast came to his eyes. “It is done. The choice is made. It is now time for you to return. But first, a grace is granted you, one of infinite worth. Look to the heavens, my friend. Behold it is she!”

Charles lifted his gaze and beheld love itself.

 

 

The First Hour of Sunday, May 13, 708 CR

 

Charles Matthias sat upright.

His tail pinched beneath him as he shifted on a pallet with a warm quilt covering both legs and tail and bunched together in his lap. Beside him lay the marten Malger also beginning to stir from sleep. A candle that had burned almost to a nub and a censer long-since spent were positioned on the floor between them. The familiar granite walls of the caves beneath Glen Avery and the faint aroma of wine surrounded them. Reclining with a startled expression before the single door in the storage chamber was the fox Misanthe.

“Sir Matthias! Are you all right. You look...”

Charles stared for a moment at the brown fur of his arms, turning them over and over again seeing only the familiar color of his fur. There was no more black; no more shadow. Satisfied, he pushed the quilts off, laughing as he did. “I'm back! I'm back, I'm back!” Once free he jumped to his feet and ran through the door. Misanthe did not even have enough time to try and stop him.

Behind him he heard Malger's voice cry out, “Let him go. He's free!”

There was barely enough light for even a rat to find his way in the caves, but Charles ran down the hall, up the two sets of carved stairs, and then through the main decanting hall and the tuns. The whisker-curling aroma of fermenting mash curdled his nose for only a pair of seconds before he was out into the night and angling out of the wind from the rancid mélange.

The Glen was dark and the air was cold. His arms wrapped about one another as he ran and chastened himself for leaving his cloak behind. But no recrimination could last in such excitement. The rat barreled down the hillside to the Glen commons and continued running east until he saw a familiar tree. A dim light shone in one of the windows for his children, but not enough to have woken them. No light shone from the main level or from his bedroom. But there was a light emanating from the stables around the far side of the tree. Standing watch outside was a figure he well knew.

“James!” Charles cried when he saw his donkey friend. The donkey's ears had turned at the sound of his running and now he turned his head as well. His muzzle stretched into a grin and he brayed right back.

“Charles! It's over! I felt it! It's over!”

The two friends clasped arms and hugged tight, laughing a delight too great to be contained. Charles tightened his grip and nodded when at last he could speak. “It is over, my friend. Marzac is gone forever. You felt it?”

James nodded, ears lifted high, and then thumped his chest and tapped his head. “Just a moment ago. It felt like some great weight had lifted from me. I could breathe again. I knew it had to be over. I didn't know why, but I knew that had to be it. You did it, Charles. You beat it too!”

“I almost failed... but... is Kimberly...”

James tossed his head at the stables and let go of the rat's shoulders. “With Murikeer. Go.”

Charles needed no further incentive. He rushed through the open doorway and was greeted by a rearing Malicon to his right, and an excited skunk at his left. Murikeer looked the rat over once and then let out a long breath. “It is good to have you back, Charles.” He said nothing more as he took a step back and allowed the rat to see who reclined behind him.

Draped in the green tendrils and purple blossoms of his vine was a lady rat with soft tan fur and eyes shut tight. Her hands were pressed tight about a familiar purple stone as her jowls moved with words repeated over and over again. Charles felt his heart pound at his chest like a prisoner beating down his cell door.

With tender steps he came and knelt before her, gently pressing his fingers to her cheeks. “My love, my Lady. I am here. You have saved me.”

Kimberly lifted her head, eyes opening. Full of intense anxiety, they quivered as if not quite believing what they saw. “Charles?” Her hands lowered the stone to her chest and then reached up to touch his face. They brushed behind his whiskers, and then up beneath his eyes. He could feel them stumble over the scar around his right eye before descending through the thicker ruff at his cheeks. Her eyes danced over his face, unable to settle until centered upon his own.

Charles slid his hands down to her shoulders where the vine slipped from her and wrapped about his wrists. “I am here, my Lady. You saved me. I love you.”

Their eyes locked and the fear held within hers finally broke. “It is you, Charles! I love you!” She thrust herself forward into his arms, her snout pressing against his neck, her arms wrapped tightly about his back. The vine and stone pressed between them but Charles felt no discomfort. He held his wife tight in his arms as she sobbed her relief.

“Is it... over?”

He nuzzled one of her ears. “It is over. Marzac is gone forever.”

The vine slipped from around Kimberly to embrace Charles. He smiled at it but said nothing as it pressed down his back beneath his tunic. He felt a warmth as the root found its place once more in the flesh above his tail. He could almost imagine it expressing relief and joy like his friends. He whispered in his mind to it and knew that his voice had been heard. I missed you too, my friend! Forgive me for not trusting you.

They held each other tight for several minutes even after Kimberly regained her composure. He could hear Murikeer and James conversing quietly outside the stables joined by both Malger and Misanthe. Within the stables his pony Malicon was scraping his hoof against the stall to get the rat's attention. All of them needed his love and gratitude as well and he would give it.

Impatient, Malicon gave a snort and redoubled his efforts to jab his hoof through the wood of the stall. Charles and Kimberly shifted where they knelt and turned their heads to regard the roan. They laughed as one and then Kimberly nuzzled her husband's snout one time more. “I love you. I have been so afraid for you.”

He felt a brief wave of guilt touch him and his smile faded. “For how long, my lady? How long have I terrified you?”

She leaned back, her smile broad enough to put a gap between her incisors. “Not long. Do not think of it, my knight. I have you back and that's all that matters.” She tapped his nose with one finger as she slipped free of his embrace. “Now you tell your horse you love him before he breaks his stall down.”

Charles laughed and sighed, a sense of pain lingering in his heart but the overwhelming joy he felt from the final vision and from holding his wife again kept it at bay. He leaned forward to brush his snout across his wife's one last time, then climbed to his paws and walked over to his steed. The roan pony calmed as soon as he approached, snorting in satisfaction when he ran his hands down his neck. “Could you tell too, my friend? We've some good riding ahead of us, don't you fear.”

The touch and his words calmed Malicon who contented himself with lipping the rat's head-fur. He patted his steed a few more times before turning to the doorway where his wife waited. Their hands slipped together and into the night they went, the witchlights illuminating the stables following behind them.

A dozen paces away they saw James and Murikeer quietly conversing with Malger and Misanthe with a trio of witchlights a few feet overhead to help them see. Charles's Long Scout cloak was draped over the marten's arm. And it was he who saw the rats leave the stables first. He lifted his free arm and his muzzle creased into a welcome smile. “You forgot your cloak, Sir Matthias!”

Together they joined their friends and Charles held out his left arm, the right entwined about his wife, and let the marten deposit his cloak. “Thank you, Archduke Sutt! I owe you more than I can ever say. Tell your lady that I am sorry I tried to deceive her.”

Malger nodded. James frowned, ears lowering, but said nothing. The marten continued, “She knows and understands. There is another matter we should discuss, but it can wait until morning. I am sure you both wish for real sleep. I know we do! After a bit of yon brewer's wine methinks.”

Charles sighed and for a moment let go his wife to give Malger a firm shake. “Thank you for your help.” He turned to Murikeer and shook the skunk's hand too. “I'm not sure all you have done, Muri, but I know you have given everything you could. Thank you. I am in your debt.”

The skunk gave him a firm shake back, long monochromatic tail lashing awkwardly behind him. “Think nothing of it, Charles. Seeing you and Lady Kimberly together without fear is a debt paid.”

He turned to James and they also shook hands. “Thank you for summoning everyone this last week. And thank you for helping to watch over my wife in her hour of need. Truly I can have no better friend than you.”

“I owe you everything I have, Charles,” James replied as his heavy fingers pressed against the rat's forearm. “And I still owe you after breaking your jaw two months back!”

The rat laughed and shook his head. “If it showed Baerle how much you care for her then it was worth it!” The donkey backed his ears in an equine blush and stammered something under his breath, tail whipping back and forth even as Murikeer chortled beneath his breath.

At the last he turned to Misanthe and offered her a slight bow. “And thank you, milady, for watching over us as we dreamed. If there is more I owe you, I will repay.”

The attention appeared to discomfit the slight fox and she also backed her ears. “Whatever you owe to Ma... Malger is sufficient for my sake, Sir Matthias.”

Charles nodded and slipped his right arm about his wife's back again. “I must see my children now. I bid each of you good night. Malger, until tomorrow. James, let Garigan know when you see him that all is well.”

“And I will let Kozaithy and Rickkter know when they arrive. We sent to fetch them hours ago!”

Charles blinked and shook his head. “And apologize to both for the inconvenience I have caused them in a needless trip to Metamor and back! I will buy Rickkter something from Lars for his trouble.”

The skunk favored him with a lop-sided grin. “That might begin to cover the annoyance he'll feel! Now go, be with your family and get some sleep. It's over.”

“Indeed it is.” Charles and Kimberly turned and walked arm in arm around the roots of their tree. Their four friends lingered a moment longer before venturing their separate ways. James followed them a few paces back to their door but waited there as they went inside. Charles felt excitement build in him anew. The familiar scent of his home, rich in wood and in the pleasing tang of his wife and children, was enough to make him turn to the stairs from which a flickering light shown. Kimberly followed behind him a few paces to keep from stepping on his tail.

The calm relief he'd felt around his friends now gave way to the energy he'd felt on rising from the dream. He rushed up the stairs so quickly that he scampered on all fours to the top. There he found Baerle sitting in the rocking chair with a single lantern hanging from a hook in the wall. The opossum turned when he reached the top and her eyes widened. “Charles, you're back! Are you...”

He stood and lifted one hand to assure her. “I am well. Thank you for watching them, Baerle.” His ears lifted at the sound of a squeak from their chambers. He dashed to the doorway and pushed aside the heavy curtain. One of his wife's witchlights rushed ahead to shine within and he saw his four little rats stirring from their beds. His heart, overwhelmed by love, pushed him into the room.

Before he'd taken three steps his eldest boy lifted his head and rubbed his eyes, “Dada? Did you get lost?”

Charles knelt down and pulled his eldest boy up from the bed into his arms. “I did, little Charles. But now I'm found. I love you, my son!” He nuzzled the boy's dark head fur and the boy squeaked happily. His other children, hearing their voices, also climbed up from their beds.

He held out his arms, and scooped each of them up one by one until he held all four of his children in very full arms. Little Baerle stuck her nose in a purple blossom poking around one of his shoulders and giggled. Bernadette nestled her head against his chest and wiggled her tail in his lap. Erick almost stood in his arms, eyes bright and curious. “Dada, you okay?”

“I am now that I have you four!” He laughed and nuzzled them each, pulling their little bodies close. “I love you all, my dear ones. I love you all!”

Their voices could only squeak in delight. With Kimberly at his back and his children in his arms, Charles Matthias, knight of the Glen, looked heavenward and knew his youngest son was smiling right back at him.

Thank you, Eli. Thank you!

Charles did not know how long he remained there holding his children in such gratitude. He only knew that it was the happiest moment of his life.

 

 

Wednesday, June 23, 724 CR, Evening

 

Charlie felt overwhelmed by all that he heard. Several times as they walked through the festival crowds gathered to celebrate the final night he'd stubbed his toes on the paving stones trying to avoid them so distracted was he by his father's discourse. Everything that had been revealed in the last two days circled in his mind; many questions he'd had for the founder of House Matthias were answered though some of those answers left him with new questions he had never before thought to ask.

But there was a question – the question – which remained unanswered. When his father said nothing more for several long seconds he dared to give voice to it. “I do not believe I will ever be able to understand all you went through, Father, but of the one thing that matters most to me I do not know any better now than I did before. How is it I am a Sutt and not a Matthias?”

They walked down the main thoroughfare through Keeptowne leaning in toward one another that their voices might be heard over the cacophony of the crowd. Keepers of all shapes and sizes thronged the streets and the stomping of their boots, paws, and hooves upon the fitted-stone was drowned by their voices all shouting in an attempt to be heard by the Keeper beside them. The crowd was thick enough that the two rats were jostled from time to time as they walked, and at times their passage was blocked by a carriage or wagon trying to fight its way through. Keepers and visitors from beyond the valley milled this way and that through the choked streets. Some rushed between the many vendors whose prices had now dropped that they might rid themselves of their wares. Others were trying to find the inns and taverns to continue their celebrations. And some had gathered just to cheer the Duke and the other nobility as they had ridden back to the Keep.

Many of them, including both rats, lifted their eyes to gaze at the evening sky. The sun had descended behind the Dragon mountains and now the clouds overhead were bathed in an orange light, even as the sky above darkened to indigo. Summer sunsets were always breathtaking and both rats kept silent for a moment more as they enjoyed the sight. Charlie wondered how close it came to what his father had seen at the top of the spire in the beyond.

But the question had been asked and neither crowds nor beauty could forestall its answer for long. After several seconds admiration, Baron Matthias let his gaze slide back to the crowds ahead of them. He slowly shook his head and dropped his whiskers. “I told you this story so that you would understand better what you saw in my dreams. I did not sell you to Nocturna. I did not! The corruption of Marzac guided my actions. You were not sold, my son. You never were. Your adoption came later.”

Charles lifted one hand to still the next question before it leaped from his son's throat. “And as for Nocturna herself, I cannot speak to her motives. I have neither sought her again nor heard word from her again. You commune with her because of your gift, but I do not. You will have to ask her yourself.” The hand lowered to his vest where it gripped the lapel. “It would be another year before we knew we had to give you to Malger. After all I have told you took place, I told both him and your mother of your ability with dreams and we agreed that he would train you, but in time we learned that alone was not enough. You needed to be his son that he might protect you in the way only he could.”

Charles took a deep breath and lifted his eyes toward the towers of the Keep. The sky above the top-most towers was clear, but the light from scattered clouds cast the gray stone in a somber, bronze warmth. “Your father described for us what you would experience as you grew the day after my ordeal. The Sondeck had given me an anger I could not control. The Dream exposed you to every frightening terror that anyone near you experienced in their sleep; worse, it gave you the temptation to interfere in the dreams of those you loved, an interference that could harm both you and the dreamer. You know this better than I do.”

“Aye,” Charlie agreed. He could not recall a time in his life without the Dream and so its dangers and his precautions were instinctual. Other than Bryn, he'd never tried explaining it to anyone else, and Bryn had understood only after several attempts. Had his father and mother truly understood that day?

As if answering his unspoken question, the Baron continued. “I do not believe we truly appreciated what you would undergo, but we could not have given you up then. Malger returned to Metamor later that day to give us time to ponder what should be done. I spent the next few days with you when I wasn't out dealing with the injuries I'd caused.”

“Like Silvas?”

“Aye. I visited the shepherd and made recompense for the ewe I killed. And I promised him that none would ever molest his flock on my lands again.”

“And Bertram?”

Charles grimaced. “I never did anything to him, praise Eli, but aye I did bring you children down to the lake to play with him at Gibson's home.” The moue lifted and with it his whiskers until a smile emerged on his snout. “You each took to swimming far better than I did at your age! I can still remember the way you all splashed about and used your tails to glide like little otters! Bertram was so happy to have you as playmates. After we returned from Sondeshara he and Erick became close, inseparable friends; Erick needed another boy to play with now that you were at Metamor; he needed a brother. And when Bertram was old enough I took him on as a squire but that was many years later.”

Charlie nodded as he listened. Somebody had started up a cheer in the crowd just outside a workman's tavern fronting the street and dozens had gathered to join. Charlie lowered his head so his ears were beside his sire's snout that he might hear over the roar.

“But much of what I hoped to do had to wait. Only four days after the ordeal Lindsey and Pharcellus returned from Arabarb carrying my friend Jerome.” A distant look crossed his eyes and his whiskers backed against his cheeks as if he were snarling at something. “I could do nothing to help Jerome as they'd hoped. My ability with the Sondeck had always been used for combat; he needed healing. I knew after only a few minutes that Jerome's only hope was to be taken to Sondeshara where the masters of Sondecki healing could examine him.

“And when I knew this, I knew of what my friend Ladero had truly spoken when he told me that I had to set things right. Many years before I had abandoned the Sondeckis. Now I had to return and accept the consequences for my dereliction. But I was not going to be separated from you and your brother, your sisters, and your mother; not after losing little Ladero while at Marzac; not again. And so I asked your father if he could help us. Not only did he have the contacts, the position, and the wealth to make a sea voyage possible for a family of Keepers, but he also could train you in the Dreaming while we journeyed.

“The prospect of a happier adventure appealed to him and so he readily agreed. What I had thought would be a simple matter turned into a much larger venture as he brought your mother Misanthe, and several servitors along, as well as hired the sea bird brothers as messengers. And of course, we had Jerome, Garigan, and two dragons in our company so you can imagine it was a significant undertaking! I left James in charge of the Narrows during my absence; I wished he could have come with us but he was the only one I could trust with my lands. Despite all the arrangements that had to be made, it only took a short time make each of them and to gather the necessary supplies; we waited at Metamor for about two weeks before we could begin. And, to my delight, I was able to help one of those I'd seen suffering in the hells during the wait; also as Ladero had promised!”

Charlie began to ask who it might have been but his father did not pause in his retelling. “And then by June we headed south and with your father and mother, their servitors, the bird messengers, a pair of dragons and my friends, we began the long journey by sea to Sondeshara. And it was on that journey that your abilities truly manifested themselves, and the painful – very painful – choice to give you to Malger as a son was made. I knew it would have to be made by the time we left Sondeshara but it was not until we neared the ports of Menth that all of us understood, accepted, and agreed to it.”

Charlie remembered that other image he'd seen in his sire's dreams, of the pier and the bargains made over the vessel that took them south. A slight smile touched his whiskers as he remembered his father, Malger Sutt, cradling him when he'd been just a little rat. “You've told me some of that journey before. I... I would very much like to hear the rest some day.”

One of Charles' eyes lifted. “Not today?”

He shook his head and could not help but chuckle. “No, no. I can wait to hear the rest. I can wait.” He shouldered past a goat bent over laughing at some unheard joke. In that moment, Charlie could not help but wonder how many others had heard even a fraction of his sire's tale. How many dark secrets had he forced the man who'd given him life, and who had been forced to give him up, relive over the last two days? How many dark thoughts had he harbored against that same man whose sufferings he'd now sampled? With each question Charlie felt an anxious regret weigh upon his heart. “Father, I... I am sorry.”

“And you've been forgiven, son. You don't need to apologize any more.”

“Not for that; I know you've forgiven me my foolish anger. I mean, I am sorry I made you relive all of this. I had no idea...”

Charles patted his back and chortled. “Again, you are forgiven, my son. What you saw had to be explained. I would have been hurt more had you not asked. And remember, with as much evil as I witnessed, I also saw a good greater than all of it combined. That solace, and the bounty of the life I've been given since, has always helped me turn the nightmares back. And Kimberly...” His father sighed and for the first time it seemed to be one filled with peace. “Your mother has always been able to quiet the storm. I owe her more than my family – more than you. I owe her my sanity. I owe her my peace.”

He sucked in his breath. Despite standing taller than his father, for a moment he felt much smaller. “Does... does Erick know these things too?”

“Which things? He knows his father and mother love each other and need each other and that they both love him and his brothers and sisters. He does not know all of our pains. And neither do you, my son. You do not know all of the pains Malger and Misanthe have either. And one day you will also have a wife and children; they will not know all of the pains you and she share. Nor the joys. It is the way of families.”

“Speaking of which,” Charlie said, nodding toward riders slowly making their way along the main thoroughfare through Keeptowne, “I see all of ours.” The crowds parted as they knew they must for the Duke and his family. Duke and Duchess led the procession of nobles, while at their side rode King Pelaeth. Malger and Misanthe followed behind them as did Bryn, Suria, and the Steppelands princess. The other Hassan children rode in a carriage behind their parents under careful guard. Following were the lesser nobility and their families. A short distance from the front Lady Kimberly rode with Erick at her side as well as the Baron's pony waiting for its rider; his sisters followed behind on ponies with some of the older children also riding and the rest in a less ostentatious carriage than used by the Hassan family.

Charles lifted his eyes and a smile crossed his features. “Duke Thomas invited all the nobility to celebrate the evening in the Great Hall. In truth I believe he merely wishes the children of his vassals to play together and become friends.”

“It is what has happened the last few years,” Charlie agreed. “He is very wise.”

“Aye. Your friend, Bryn, shows the same wisdom. You have been a great help to him, son.”

“I am trying. He is my dearest friend, as much brother as he is friend.”

They pressed out of the throng of onlookers and onto the main avenue, following the train of vassals. The train's pace was measured enough that it would not take long before they reached the Matthias clan. It was likely his last opportunity to ask his sire anything before the press of family and celebration kept them apart. “Father, about your tale... you cut off your time Beyond so abruptly. What did you see there at the end?”

Tilting back his head, the Baron could only smile as if struck with awe. His eyes searched the bronze-limned clouds as if expecting them to part as they had in the garden atop the mountain of souls. “What I saw... oh, son, you cannot even imagine it. I saw she who said yes to Eli. I saw purity and goodness fully lived. I saw obedience and humility in all deeds. I saw devotion and the silence of prayer in hands clasped to the breast. I saw the tabernacle of the Most High. I saw the sorrow of a heart pierced through. I saw love in all its fullness, as full as any of us here could ever give though we all fall short. What I saw I am at a loss for words to describe any better than this!”

Charlie knew enough of Ecclesia beliefs to grasp what his sire intimated. “Do you mean to say you saw the blessed Yanlin, mother of Yahshua?”

His father turned his head, still gazing upward, to smile enigmatically at his son. “Do not doubt the reality of what the Ecclesia teaches, my son. I know Nocturna and all the Daedra are real. I know that the Aedra are also very much real and a power beyond compare in our world. You may not follow as I do, but do not doubt.”

He grimaced and his whiskers flicked forward. “I... don't, father. I just... I...”

He felt a paw on his shoulder and looked down into his father's eyes. “You do not need to explain yourself to me on matters of faith, son. I only ask you be more understanding of Erick the next time he...”

He chuffed and nodded. “That I will.”

Charles smiled again. “I have often wondered why I was granted such a boon. Just as I have wondered why Akkala told your mother that Ladero had to die in order to save me. Of the latter I have a few ideas; perhaps had Ladero survived I might have done some wrong to you and Erick. Or perhaps I would have resisted the journey to Sondeshara and then fell victim to Gmork when he crossed the valley later that summer; Jerome would not have had the strength to resist him then. But all I can do is speculate.

“As to the boon, I believe it be a promise that I will one day see that place again. Do not speak of this, but I believe that it will be a very long time before I do.”

“I do not understand what you mean.”

Charles placed his hand on his chest and traced a line across it; the same line that Charlie had marked him with the day before on the tourney field. “There must be a reason for this. I do not believe anything occurs without reason, even if we will never know them this side of death.” His ears lifted and he half turned his head. “I fear that is all we can share, my son. You have a visitor.”

Charlie turned and nearly smacked his muzzle into an equine snout. Attired in riding tack was a very familiar zebra. Attached to one of her ears was the oval-cut emerald he'd gifted her with that morning. She chuffed into his face and tossed her head back, gesturing to the saddle.

“Maysin!” Charlie exclaimed, voice plaintive and surprised. “I thought I said I would not need you as mount today!”

Maysin heard his words and then tossed her head back again. She then trotted to his side and lowered her forequarters so that he could easily climb. Charlie stared helplessly while his father laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

“Honor your servant and friend, my son. I will see you in the Great Hall.”

The rat gave a long exasperated sigh, shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “All right, Maysin, you win! I suppose I shouldn't have insisted you spend all day with your beautiful stripes covered!”

The zebra whickered in agreement even as he climbed into the saddle. She lifted him in the air and with a stamping trot cantered up along the parade of nobles, tossing her head and flashing her teeth and mane for all to see. “Show off,” Charlie chided, but his good humor had already returned. He waved to the Matthias clan as he rode past, and a moment later Maysin brought him alongside Bryn and his sister Suria.

“Oh good, you found him!” Suria barked and wagged her tail. “Well done, Maysin!”

“I was on my way to join you,” Charlie protested.

“You've missed almost everything else,” Suria shot back with an arch stare inherited from their mother.

Charlie patted Maysin on the neck and smiled to both his sister and Bryn who was trying not to laugh. Argamont, who carried Bryn, had no such inhibitions and whinnied with abandon. “Well, thanks to Maysin, I'm here now. So, Bryn, any word on the princess?”

Bryn's ears fell back in chastened silence, while Suria shot her brother a dark glare. It was Charlie's turn to laugh.

 

 

It was a little over an hour later that all of the nobility finally succeeded in their passage through Keeptowne and into the Keep itself. The procession was for the most part decorous with the pomp of blaring trumpets and waving banners. The young children did their best to show the dignity of their houses, but there were always a few who yearned to run ahead or hide among the statuary or tapestries.

They paused briefly to dismount when they reached the Keep proper, Charlie giving Maysin another hug around the neck before taking his place with the Sutt household. Since his House had already been announced and occupied the High Table with the Duke and their visitors the delay was but moments compared to the wait many had to endure as they reached the Great Hall and each house was announced by crier and invited in. Duke Thomas kept the formality for the sake of each house that they might have their moment to be recognized; each was proud of their name and it was best to show them that honor. But by the time each house entered, their youngest children were bundles of uncontrollable energy that finally found release. One section of the hall had been set aside for their play and they happily took advantage of it, even if at first they mostly played only with their own siblings.

It took perhaps a half hour before the room was thronged with nobles and their children of all ages. Servitors brought refreshments, though after the feasting they had all done on the tourney field there was nothing heavy served, merely bits of fruit, cheese, or meat along with wine or juice. Charlie and Bryn sampled a little of each as they watched the other families enter the hall, chatting with their friend Sigismund who had stationed himself to serve them, rather than delegating that task to another of the numerous pages. The young alligator was still heady with the magecraft and he gushed excitedly about the entire affair even as his father, the Steward, watched with pride.

Despite the noise from the playing children echoing in the heights of the hall, clusters of nobles gathered to chat and discuss. Charlie knew that much of it was gossip about who was in favor in which court, and he was certain that his antics in the last two days were part of that gossip. But he did not lie to himself; the majority was certain to be about Bryn and the foreign princess who even now was enjoying the company of the Duchess. For his part, Bryn was doing his best to pay it no heed.

As Charlie scanned the crowds gathered he felt a small pain in his heart. He turned back to long-eared horse and alligator and dipped his head in an apologetic bow. “Sig, I'm sorry, but there's somebody I need to speak with. You can tell me all I missed in a little bit.”

Sig opened his jaws wide in a toothy grin. “I will tell you when you return, Charlie!”

He laughed and slipped away from his friends. He took two goblets of wine from a passing servitor and then waded into the throng. Charlie wound past several minor nobles, some beastly and others human, until he reached a fellow rat standing at the edge of the crowd watching the children scamper about. He stepped alongside and offered a goblet. “You look like you could enjoy something to drink, Erick.”

His brother and litter-mate turned, eyes flashing down to the goblet and then back up before stretching a clumsy hand to grasp it. “Oh, um, Charlie,” The young rat offered pensively, staring at the cup. “Thank you.”

Charlie sipped the wine and smiled as he watched the Duke's young son Philip trying to stomp across the room with four little rats hanging on his arms and legs. “Did you enjoy the mage's spectacle?”

Erick's ears and whiskers lifted. He sniffed the goblet but did not drink, shooting a glance toward the knot of people clustered around the mage's table where Murikeer and his wife, Kozaithy, held the center of attention with the visiting Magyar adept. “It was very impressive! They really outdid themselves this year. Having all the bells in the valley sound at once... that will long be remembered.” He took a sip of the wine and frowned, eyes focused on the goblet. “Charlie, I...”

“I'm sorry, Erick,” Charlie interjected softly while his brother stammered.

Erick looked up at that, whiskers and ears flatting back briefly. “I'm sorry too,” he offered at length.

They sipped the wine, neither saying anything as they watched their younger siblings finally drag Philip to the ground where they proceeded to tickle the horse's sides, keeping well clear of his hooves as he kicked and brayed. A dozen paces to their left Bryn shouted encouragement to his younger brother. On their other side, Peter, Timothy and the other Matthias children squeaked their approval for all to hear, louder almost than the score of other children joining in their fun. Nobles and aristocrats from around the valley laughed at their antics with the delight only parents could feel.

Nor was the melee restricted to horses and rats. At seeing the approval of their parents most of the rest of the youngest children of the valley's nobility rushed into the fracas to either help the Duke's second son struggle from beneath the weight of scampering rodents or to hang from his arms like the rats had. Soon the hall was so full of young voices, both human and beastly, that it was hard to hear aught else. Charlie cast a glance at Duke Thomas who stood with the foreign King at the high end of the hall beaming at the spectacle.

“How was the... talk with Father?” Erick asked at length after taking a slow sip of his wine.

He turned back to Erick and shrugged his shoulders. “Perplexing. You know how his stories can be.” At that Erick nodded with understanding eyes. “But it did help me see, at least on his account, just how wrong I had been. If not for my Gift, we'd be competing, you and I, to see who would lead the Matthias house.” He chuffed ruefully. “I've seen many brothers, from peasant to royal, at extreme odds when they sought to be the head of their houses. Acrimony is the often sad result, if not worse still.” Reaching out he tapped the rim of his goblet against the one his brother held. “In that, I guess I should be pleased that we are brothers in different families.”

The thought made Erick blink in surprise and then he laughed, covering it with another drink of wine. “I hadn't thought of that. And it might be you who was betrothed to Lenora and not I!”

He laughed and patted his brother on the back. “Master Julian's comely daughter would be a much better wife than some of the girls my father has introduced me to. One of them screamed in terror on meeting me!”

“Ouch! There's always your lovely zebra. She seems fond of you.”

Charlie grunted and glared at his brother, chiding, “I told you yesterday that she already has a suitor. Although...” he shook his head before saying something ill about the lass who'd offered her service as steed and who cherished the role for his sake. “She is a fine lass who will become an even more fine woman and for the sacrifice of her service, unique only to Metamor, I am in her debt. But enough of that. I understand you will not be returning to the Narrows until Friday?”

Erick favored him a lopsided grin, evidently enjoying his brother's chagrin. “Aye, tomorrow will be nothing but chaos on the streets. Father very much wishes to avoid that, so we shall wait for the exodus to die down before returning home.”

“Care to join me for a bit of exploration?” Charlie suggested. “I know where Master Julian and Master Goldmark keep a secret stash of wines amongst many other interesting secrets! I can even take you in to see Long House if you'd like.”

His brother stood taller and his ears lifted in excitement. “You could? Oh I'd love to, Charlie. I bet it would take days to see everything.”

Charlie's ears pricked up and he shook his head slowly. “In the Long House, itself? Hours, perhaps.” He leaned back to look up at a raucous tumult above, where a half dozen winged Keepers were cavorting among the witchlights among the rafters with the more arboreal of the visiting children. “To see is but brief. To listen to the histories of what you see, however; months if not years. Misha and many of the older Longs have stories to tell that would rival our father's. Perhaps I can convince him to let you spend some time here with me. I could even let you enjoy training sessions with Vidika!”

Now his brother's eyes went wide. “That little devil!” Erick winced with a flat-eared frown. “Oh I can feel bruises already from the mere suggestion!”

They both laughed, sloshing wine from their goblets in their enthusiasm.

And then a booming voice carried over even the tumult of the children playing. Enhanced by magic, it was clear to all even through the thick Steppelander accent. Charlie and Erick turned toward the high end of the hall where King Pelaeth stood with his arms outstretched and his younger sister at his side. His dark-hair had both refinement and a wild energy as if it were a horse's mane in mid-gallop. His eyes swept the assembled Keepers and yet were fixed upon the ducal heir who stood a short distance from him beside Thomas and Alberta. The words would be meant for Charlie's closest friend and yet witnessed by all.

Incongruously it was Sigismund who stood slightly behind king and princess, one hand held forth yellow palm up while his powerful muzzle was dipped and eyes closed in concentration. Clearly it was the young mage and steward in training who supplied the magic that made the visiting king's voice fill the hall.

Pelaeth swept one hand wide to encompass the hall. “Thou hast a mighty land and a mighty people. Tested by wars and by a curse that has sundered thee from thy own race, thou hast thrived! Thou hast triumphed! Thy enemies have been thwarted and the kingdoms that rose against thee now beg of thee for thy plenitude! Thou art warriors true! Thou art a great people!

“And thou hast shown great honor in welcoming my house to thy celebration. Thou hast shown great honor in welcoming the riders of the Steppe and one of the greatest of mages of the Magyars into thy contests.” With his other hand he drew the long silver and black blade from its scabbard – the only weapon allowed in the Great Hall apart from those born by the Duke, his family, and their many guards – and lifted it high over his head that all could see. “Thou didst show great honor in allowing my sword to stand in the contest; and a man given the guise of a rat defeated me! I am in awe of thy prowess, thy generosity, thy honor, and thy spirit! Would that I too couldst accept thy curse to bring such virtue back to my kingdom!”

There was a roar of approval from the gathered crowd at those words. Charlie and Erick hooted and stomped their feet in approval with all the rest. But Charlie's eye was focused on his friend Bryn who did not move, but stood tall and proud, ears lifted, ready for the words that were to come.

King Pelaeth did not make him wait. “I doth find thee and thy kingdom, good Duke, to be worthy of Vysehrad! If it is thy noble son's desire to seek my sister's hand in marriage, only one thing would I ask of him. If he dost seek her hand, then he wilt journey next Summer to my kingdom and win her heart for himself.” The crowd murmured in wonder at the suggestion. It was at least a two to three month's journey to the city of Cheskych in Vysehrad for the vastness of the Steppe with all its dangers and deprivations had to be crossed.

Pelaeth lowered the blade and held it before him with both hands so that the point was only inches from the marble floor. “What dost thee say, good Thomas Bryn Hassan. Wilt thou come to the Vysehrad to seek my sister's hand?”

Bryn stepped away from his family and crossed the distance to where Pelaeth and Brygitta waited. He lifted his head and in as loud voice as he could muster, Bryn answered, “Your Majesty, you have shown us great honor by coming to our land and joining us in contest of sword and sorcery. And you show my family great honor by the offer you make to me. I accept your offer, your Majesty. I will come to the land of Vysehrad and the ancient city of Cheskysh to seek Princess Brygitta's hand and to win her heart.”

The crowd erupted in a roar of approval. Pelaeth grabbed Bryn by the shoulders and gave him a hug that looked likely to break a normal man's back. Brygitta bowed her head respectfully toward her equine suitor and once he was free of the King's embrace returned the bow. Duchess Alberta beamed with unalloyed pride and even Duke Thomas appeared pleased with the offer.

Charlie cast a glance at his family and saw his sister Suria scowling, ears back, jowls quivering as her eyes shot daggers at the princess. He sighed and shook his head.

As the roar died down, Erick nudged him in the side, “Well, well, well! It looks like yon ducal heir has finally found love, eh brother?”

“Perhaps,” Charlie said with a nod and a smile. “So, would you like to accompany us to Vysehrad next Summer?”

Erick spluttered into his wine. “Wha... what? Me?”

“Do you think Bryn will go alone? Of course not. He'll have mages, soldiers and retainers aplenty on the journey, as well as many friends to advise and encourage him. He will ask me and I will go. And I will need mages, soldiers, and retainers aplenty! We must pass through lands that are not friendly to Keepers and who knows what other dangers we may face. Bryn would never object to you joining my company. And if you want to invite Sir Bertram I'd be happy to have him along as well.”

His brother Erick stared at him open mouthed and wide-eyed. And then in the happiest laugh he'd ever heard from his brother, Erick flung his arms around his middle and hugged him tight, even as all the wine from his goblet sloshed across the floor. “I will go! I will go! Thank you, Charlie! What an adventure it will be!”

“That it will!” Charlie hugged him right back, excited beyond measure at the prospect of a long journey with his brother at his side. “Come, let us go see yon ducal heir – oh, here he comes anyway!”

They both turned to find Bryn slipping through the crowd of nobility, all of whom made him stop to offer their congratulations and best wishes on his journey. Bryn thanked them even as his eyes kept turning to the pair of rats. Charlie and Erick saved him the trouble of fighting through the crowd by forcing their way to his side.

“Ah, Charlie, Erick, how did you like that little show?” Bryn's deep voice was buried in the tumult of the celebration to such a degree that, even with their keen ears, the rats had to lean close to hear him.

“Very impressive, your grace,” Erick beamed, his whiskers twitching in excitement even as his tail thumped back and forth behind him.

“Well, it will be a very long journey to Vysehrad and so...”

“Yes, Bryn,” Charlie assured him. “I will be at your side.”

Bryn laughed and pulled him tight with one powerful arm, snatching Erick close with the other. “I knew you would!” Dipping his muzzle slightly to look down at them he raised an eyebrow. “What of...”

Charlie caught the question before it was asked. “And Erick, yes, I have asked and he accepted. Now we need only convince Father to allow it.”

Bryn patted the shorter rat on the shoulder. “Excellent! You've a good arm, Erick. We'll be delighted to have you.” His expressive equine lips drew back in a grin. “After all, the good Baron would not refuse a request of his liege now would he?”

“No, that I doubt,” Erick agreed with an effusive bob of his head. “I will not disappoint you, your grace!” With a brief salute of his empty goblet Erick withdrew to convey the request to their sire.

Charlie leaned closer and spoke into the horse's ear. “Do you love this princess, Bryn?”

Bryn grimaced and cast a quick glance back over his shoulder. “She is pleasant and fetching and she seems to have a good soul. I cannot know if I love her after just two days, but... what an adventure to find out!” He leaned in a little closer and in a whisper added, “Besides, Mother would have skewered me if I hadn't said yes!”

Charlie tipped back his head and laughed.

 

 

Night had long since fallen by the time the Sutt family retired from the Great Hall. Almost all of the other noble houses had already sought the comfort of the quarters provided by the Keep; after three days of festival they were each of them as exhausted as if they had marched with the armies up the length of the valley and back down again. After giving their body servants instructions to prepare their chambers, they dismissed the remainder of their staff for the night and reclined in the main hall for a few moments of quietude before seeking slumber.

Suria was grumpy and Misanthe tried to comfort her with the promise that there was a man right for her still waiting to be discovered. Charlie was tempted to note that if she really wanted to marry a Hassan, there was always young Philip but he held his tongue, knowing that to give voice to the thought, tease or truth notwithstanding, would have resulted in a thorough pummeling with a host of pillows.

Malger stretched in one chair and sighed expansively before turning to Charlie with a curious glance. “You missed the wonderful show the mages offered.”

He nodded even as he stretched out his toes, working them loose. “I know. I was hearing the rest of my sire's tale. All is healed between us now. I even invited Erick to accompany us to Vysehrad next year.”

“That will be a mighty undertaking, son. Far, far more than our voyages to Sutthaivasse.”

“I know. And who knows the dangers we may face. But Bryn needs me for this. It will be a world like none we have ever seen. I am ready for this, Father.”

Misanthe looked at her son and then her husband and then back to her son. “You will send us messages to keep us informed.” It was not a question.

“Of course, mother. Maybe father will lend me Kurgael!”

Malger laughed at the suggestion, though he could not hide his exhaustion. “Ah, Charlie, indeed I shall. I know you will keep Bryn safe and provide him with wise counsel. But speaking of Sutthaivasse, I have heard that you promised to attend a different wedding than the one we have been invited to in Breckaris. When were you planning on telling us?”

Charlie chuffed and backed his ears. “Tomorrow I suppose, after everything died down. Now is as good a time as any. My sister Bernadette is getting married in August and I wish to attend, with your leave. I'd much rather attend hers than the one of the girl who screamed the first time she saw me!”

Malger's smile widened with good humor. “A very good point. But we can hardly snub a personal invitation from Duke Schanalein of Breckaris. He is an ally of Metamor after all.”

Charlie nodded and turned to his sister. “Then let Suria go with you.” He waved one hand slightly toward the morose young wolf.

For the first time since the King's announcement and Bryn's acceptance, Suria's ears perked in delight. Her tail began to wag. “Oh, can I come with you to Breckaris, Father?”

“She has seen only Sutthaivasse, father, whereas I have attended your diplomatic travels far more widely.” Charlie continued persuasively. “She is of age to become a more active part of that diplomacy. And she's a wolf, as well as a student of Vidika.” He laughed softly with a wink at his sister. “She is unlikely to be in danger even alone against a throng of bandits.”

Malger stroked his muzzle with the fingers of one hand as he pondered his son's argument though his eyes revealed that his answer had already been considered and made. At length he nodded. “I think that would be a good opportunity for Charlie to assume the mantle of our House in Metamor while we, your sister and mother and I, travel to Breckaris.”

Suria yipped in delight and gave her father a very canine lick on the cheek in thanks.

 

Both Suria and Misanthe retired to sleep a few minutes later, leaving Charlie alone with his father. Malger yawned and stretched in his seat, placing his feet upon the ground in the first gesture of many heralding his attempt to rise and find his bed. Charlie had been sitting up for some time but could not quite make himself seek his bed.

“You look exhausted, son. You should get your sleep.”

“I know, but...”

Malger cast him a sidelong glance. “You have to speak to Her, son. You have made peace with me and with the Baron. You need to make peace with Her too.”

Charlie wanted to grab his chewstick and start gnawing it in frustration but he forced himself to ignore that need. Instead he lifted his hands to the lune medallion pressing against his chest beneath his doublet. He had known since the night before he would have to do this, and yet now that the time came he found an anger still there in his heart. “I know. I know that bargain was not what it seemed. I know it, but...”

“It hurts you still,” Malger said for him. The rat could only nod. “Which is why you need to speak to Her son.” The marten put his hands on the chair and pushed himself upright through a tight curl no human could have managed. He stretched again, arching his back half-way over and then turned toward the hall back to his bedchambers. “Good night, Charlie. I will see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Father.” Charlie called after him. He stared down at his toes for several minutes before finally working up the nerve to move them. His heart beat in his chest, and his snout creased in a moue. It was time to face his goddess, the very goddess who had bartered for his soul so long ago.

 

 

This was not the Temple, Charlie realized when he opened his eyes and stared up at the wispy moonlit silver of mares' tails scratched across the star dappled darkness above. A breeze whispered across his whiskers, cooling the edges of his ears and filling them with the quiet rattle of leafless branches. At his back was a cold hardness; no bed, nor table or bench, but stone.

Something cracked in the darkness, a reverberating peal of thunder that whipped away the clouds and sent the bracken into a frenzy of fearful rattling. The fullness of the moon gazed down upon him, occluded by two forms that towered above him though only one cast a shadow. To his right towered a feathered pillar of fearsome black, slender arms ending in taloned hands that clawed at the night. To his left a shorter form, stout and familiar, looking up at the black monument of feathers and terror.

“A soul for a soul in return, mistress.” The shorter form spoke, his voice hardened with resolve but torn beneath with the choice he made. “That is what I offer.”

Another voice gasped in the moonlit darkness but Charlie could not see the speaker, decrying the bargain being struck. The raven held up an arm, fingers splayed in a halting gesture toward the unseen plaintiff. Charlie could only gaze up at the two; rat and raven glaring at one another over the stone upon which he lay, immobile and mute. His sire lowered his head slowly, bringing his gaze down upon him, and Charlie saw the pain within his dark eyes. But there was something else, both within and without that gaze. A hardness, a resolve, but neither was truly of the rat that bore them. At his side a shadow shimmered, vaguely rat-like in form but as much misty serpent whispering into one of the rat’s ears. As Charlie gazed into the grief of his father’s gaze he saw his eyes harden, the muscles of his jaws clench as he came to the culmination of a path chosen.

“This is what I offer,” Charles said, without looking up, reaching out one hand as if to touch his abandoned son. The shifting darkness at his side became more substantial at the resolve in Charles’ voice, pressing closer, casting its dark shadow across him, all the while whispering into his ear.

“The bargain is struck.” The raven croaked flatly, as if both pleased and offended that her demands would be considered at all, much less met. “The exchange is agreed.” To seal the bargain the raven’s head darted forward, easily twice the size of the rat's head toward which it struck. But when her beak snapped shut it was not upon Charlie’s father, but rather the shadow whispering in his ear. Blood glistened, lingering in the air an inch from the closed beak, but the source of the blood was no longer present.

In the instant the razor's edge of the beak closed the shadow at Charles’ ear expanded, losing form as it enshrouded the rat, and he was simply gone. The raven reared upright, her vast wings flaring wide, and that hanging drop of blood landed upon the stone near Charlie with a quiet pat.

“Where did he go?” A surprised voice called out. A new form appeared at Charlie’s right side, but not that of a rat. The tall, slender frame of his adoptive father strode into view, looking at the ground as if it had become a predator of rats.

“Where he must.” The raven croaked quietly.

“Where?!” Malger demanded again, glaring up at the taller bird. “He needs my escort here, his Dream is too deep! He cannot wake before danger, here!”

“He is not Here.”

“Where, then, has he gone? Let me go to him, Nocturna!” Frightfully bold, the marten, making demands of a goddess. But she was also, on these realms, as much a wife as he could have. He was not her equal, but in some ways he was more powerful even than she, because life beat within his breast.

“You cannot, love. You are bound here. He has gone beyond; deeper. He has crossed the Bridge to Lilith’s domain.”

Malger’s jaw dropped, aghast, his entire posture horrified, and furious. “She will kill him!”

“She will not.” Nocturna shook her head slowly. “She, truly, can not. He has a guardian to see him safely through to the end of his quest. It girds his mortal soul from the touch of any of Us, light and dark alike. I cannot strip that from him; only he can cast it off.”

Malger finally seemed to realize what his Goddess was saying, his posture growing stiff. “The shadow, again? It has attempted to take them all; only he remains.” He raised a hand to his brow and groaned. “And I brought him on this path!”

“All found the paths upon which to take their journey, my dear.”

“I must awake, the others need to be warned.”

“Tell only one, Malger, who awaits with you. He has prepared, and knows what to do.”

“What of him?” Malger finally sighed, looking down at Charlie for the first time, worry writ plain upon his angular muzzle. He was younger, here, less hardened by his life of politics and intrigue. “Has Charles truly abandoned his son to you?”

“Has he?” Charlie found himself speaking, but there were none to speak to. Malger was gone, as was the towering form of the Raven.

“No.” A voice far softer than the bird reached his ears and Charlie sat up. He found that he had been lying upon the same altar that he had seen his father place him upon; an offering to Nocturna. He sighed and bowed his head, for all that he had witnessed was true, it had come to fruition.

His father's tale, vast and powerful, could not take away the bargain. He had been sacrificed for a ghost.

“And, yet, you were not.” The same voice again, gently admonishing. Charlie raised his gaze to find a rat standing between the stones where once the Raven had towered. Black of coat and blue of eye she wore a simple, if elegant, gown of shimmering black silk. Such was always Nocturna’s choice of costume for the realm of Dreams was a place with little color save what those who dreamed brought with them.

Charlie swept an arm across the top of the tor, taking in the massive stone plinths and altar stone upon which he sat, “What, then, is this if not a place of sacrifice? Of bargains? Of selling and purchasing?”

“It is a place like any other, Charlie.” Nocturna admonished softly, “Like a fountain or a crossroads or a market stall. Simply a place.” She did not approach any closer than the ring of stones, her hands clasped demurely before her stomach. This was the first time in all of his years that Charlie had seen her take on the guise of a rat. It struck him profoundly and he found himself gasping at it.

Nocturna, a being of the Dreams as much as its Deity, was not limited to a single aspect; she was change, malleable to her own whim and the needs of the dream. For Malger she had once been human in appearance, unchanging, until he himself had lost the form he had been born to and became a pine marten. So she had changed, for his sake, assuming the forms of many species in his Dreams, save for a few.

Since the curse took Malger she had never against assumed the form of a human. Since Misanthe had come to his side she had never again become a fox. Since Charlie had become his son she had not become a rat – until now, in his painful dream.

“WHY?” He rasped, slapping the stone. “Why did you bring him to do this? To give me to you?!”

“He did not, Charlie. He never did.”

“Then why am I on this bedamned stone?” He slapped the altar again, glaring at her.

“I planted a seed, a thought, an idea of a realization that must come, in time.”

Charlie rolled his eyes and slid off the stone. After a moment glaring down at it he reached down to grasp its edge with both hands. Despite being as massive as a castle gate he flung it up and cast it away, but only as far as the circle of stones. It slammed against the plinths with a muted crash and fell to the earth, broken into halves. “What are you blathering about, Nocturna?” He snarled without looking at her, glaring instead at the broken stone.

The matronly black mouse did not take affront at his angry boldness and momentary tantrum. “You are a Dreamer, Charlie. It was born to you, as it was to Malger. But you lacked a very important path to its realization that Malger had.”

Crossing his arms over his chest Charlie turned to lean his hip against the empty pedestal upon which the altar stone had rested. “What was that?”

“A corrupt priest.” Nocturna shrugged her feminine shoulders, long tail swaying back and forth in the darkness behind her.

“A what?”

“Malger was brought up into Eli’s House, he knew nothing of the Pantheon. Nothing of the Dreams into which he could stride, unknowing. Had he kept the Yew the darkness of his sleep would have driven him mad, despite what I was teaching him.” Nocturna finally paced slowly into the ring of stones, her fingers trailing lightly along the edge of one half of the altar slab where it rested propped against the plinth that broke it. “But he was turned away from Eli by darkness in another, the very Priest of his sire’s House. His anger at that corruption opened his heart and mind to my touch, and my instruction, though he knew me not.”

“You were Mosha to him, then.”

“And ever would I have been, but for that skunk, Murikeer.”

“Who brought all of this about.” Once more Charlie waved a hand to take in the henge.

“In passing, but that was his fate.” Nocturna paced slowly about within the limits of the stone circle. “But Malger had earned that love long before Murikeer forced my hand, in taking from me a mighty burden.”

“This still does not answer my question, Nocturna.” Charlie muttered with a frown, watching the Goddess of Dreams pace a wide circle around him. “Why did you force Charles to choose between me and a ghost.”

“No, Charlie, he never chose. He fought, with every last fiber of his very being, and continues to fight to this day. It was the shadow that chose, not its bearer. You know this already for you have heard it from him.” Nocturna’s voice took on some of the crushing power that Charlie had sensed from the Raven; the Presence of a deity speaking down upon a mere mortal who challenged it. His heart skipped a beat and Charlie wilted a little under her flat stare. “But you lacked an escape, Charlie. The seed had to be planted, for what you are could not be embraced by what you would have been.”

“Riddles.” Charlie scoffed, though with less vehemence.

“You would have been of Eli’s House, Charlie. You would have lacked the influence of a corrupt touch to make you question that faith. And, yet, you would have been a Dreamer as your father is, nonetheless.” Nocturna stopped pacing, her hand resting lightly upon the aged stone face of a plinth at which her piercing blue gaze was directed. “The dichotomy weighed heavily even upon Malger, though he was growing ever more distant from the Ecclesia at the time due to the evil of one man. Even had I come to you, in time your faith would have pushed me away, and yet you would still Dream.”

“As Malger has told me, many times, over the years. It would have driven me mad.”

“To the deeper grief of your sire, dam, and family than they now suffer, as you fell apart before them and they could do nothing to help because they would never have known the reason of it. The loss of Ladero was a distant wound, suffered long after the blade had fallen. But it cut deeply, its agony keen, and its injury was so grievous it left a place for the shadow to fester. But your loss, protracted over time and lack of understanding, would have been a fierce bludgeon that would have crushed his spirit. And in so doing, it would have devastated the entirety of your family.” Nocturna turned her gaze from the stone toward him, one arm slowly waving to encompass the scene. “So, I had to plant the seeds of knowledge within his heart, even as the shadow sought to corrupt his soul to its own ends.”

“So that he could give me up?”

“So that he would know why he must, and he could, and not lose you to the madness which would have come otherwise.” Coming forward the Goddess rested a hand lightly upon his shoulder, her eyes incongruously blue against the black fur and flesh of her rat face. “All he lost in the bargain was your name, Charlie. He never lost his son. But, in the end, it was never for his own peace that I led him to bring you to me.” Her hand dropped, touching the tip of one finger over his heart before drawing away. “It was for you, and this one moment.”

Charlie raised a single brow, his scalloped ears cupping forward. “This moment? What of it?”

“This is the moment of choosing, Charlie. Lune or Yew, you can choose.” She turned slightly, raising her gaze toward the ever present moon that hung over Her realm. “I can take away that which keeps you from your sire.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can take the Dream, Charlie.” Nocturna admitted softly. “If you ask.”

Charlie leaned back upon the pedestal, struck dumb by that one simple statement. “You can?” He gaped, aghast. “You could, had I ever asked?!” Slowly Nocturna nodded, not turning her gaze from the moon. “Why, then, did you never tell me?”

“Because you never asked, Charlie. And because it would have cost me a son, myself.”

Charlie’s muzzle opened to speak, but no words escaped. His thoughts reeled and stumbled about within his mind and all he could do for several moments was blink, muzzle opening to speak only to close without a word emerging. He stepped away from the pedestal and paced away from Nocturna. “What son? I’ve never known you to harbor children as the other aedra or daedra have.”

“I have, twice before.” Nocturna admitted. “The first I surrendered to Man that he might Dream, eons ago when the Pantheon was young. Another to one I thought was a kindred spirit, but I was duped and she was stolen away from me.” Her voice trailed off with a sigh, tail stilling and ears backing upon her black head. “Millennia passed before I found her again, unknowing of her heritage and seeking me only for aid against her father. Only by Malger your father's intervention did she come to know me as more than that.”

“And, the son?”

Nocturna turned to look over her shoulder, one brow raised. “You, Charlie.”

Charlie scowled, arms crossing upon his breast. “I am not your son, Nocturna.”

She nodded, “Not of flesh or spirit, but through the Dream, and Malger your father, I have known you from the earliest of your years. Had not Malger stolen the burden of grief from my shoulders I would never have had concern for your life, Charlie. I would have taken you or let you languish into madness without concern, but for his interference. Because I forced him to acknowledge me as I am, and not the guise of Mosha, I have been forced to bring you to know me as well.” She turned finally, to meet his incredulous stare, one hand resting over her heart. “And in so bringing you to know me, I have been brought to know you.” Turning her hand from its place over her heart she reached out to touch Charlie's breast over his own heart. “You are, then, a son to me.”

Charlie could only chuff, stunned at that admission, lost for words.

All of what she had done, to bring him to this moment.

“I can choose?”

“Yes, Charlie.” Nocturna nodded slowly. “I can grant the gift, and I can take it away.”

“You gave it to me in the first place?”

“Not by direct intention, no. I offered up my first born child that mortals could Dream as you and your father do. In that, yes, I gifted the Dream to you. But I did not reach out and give it to you as I did Misanthe.”

“Then how did I get this, Nocturna? My sire, my dam, their entire line… none of them bent to the Pantheon.”

“Nor did Malger’s, yet still he Dreams, as did others in his lineage.”

“You can… let me be as Charles would have wished? A normal son, like Erick?”

Frowning, Nocturna nodded. Charlie noticed that her hands clutched each other more tightly upon the stomach of her black gown. “Yes, Charlie.”

“Can you take something else?”

Her eyes came up and she tilted her head slightly. “Something else?”

“The Nightmare.”

Nocturna’s brows drew down slightly, confusion making her whiskers twitch. “You bear them, Charlie, as they are a Dreamer’s duty.”

“No, Nocturna, not my Nightmare. My father’s; Charles. You gave them, can you not take them away?”

“Guilt gives them, Charlie, not I. He decries me more than I believe he does any of the Pantheon, moreso even than the Daedra, for what he feels I have done to him.”

“Because of what he was, has been, forced to do!” Charlie pleaded. “And he suffers for it! This dream, this place, plagues him such that I was pulled into it. I have felt how it tears at him!”

Nocturna tilted her head slightly and raised both brows, the pink flesh of her black furred ears pinning forward. “You ask that I take his nightmares? What of your Dream?”

Striding forward Charlie reached out and rested both hands upon her shoulders. “I am yours, Nocturna. Did you take the Dream I would still be, for I have known you as both goddess and matron; mother. But my sire has been tortured enough. Please, take these dreams from him.” Stepping back slightly he dropped his hands from her shoulders and moved to bend a knee before her. “Give him peace and I will offer my soul to you, freely.”

Surprisingly strong hands for such a petite frame captured Charlie’s upper arms before he could kneel, holding him upright. “Peace is his, Charlie. I cannot take from him his sense of guilt, but I can take the dreams that dredge it up afresh.” Releasing his upper arms she moved her hands to his shoulders and held him at their length. “I have never asked your father to bow before me, Charlie, as a supplicant to my sphere. I will not ask it of you, either. Your soul is yours.” With a smile pulling at the corners of her muzzle her blue eyes twinkled. “And, you know Me, as you do your mothers both, and only beyond that as a goddess. No faith will ever bar you from that knowledge, no matter how closely you cleave. If you turn your gaze toward Eli you will not close yourself to me. I will be here for you, always.”

“And I for you, Mother.”

The dark-furred rat allowed her smile to stretch nearly the full length of her muzzle. “Thank you, my son.” Her hand touched the fur at his cheek much as his mother did to show affection when in the public eye. For a moment it seemed she might do more, but then she turned her gaze toward a moonlit path leading away from the plinths. “Are you ready?”

She did not need to ask any further. “I am, Mother. And, for my father?”

Her smile did not waver. “He will sleep in peace from this night forward, my son.”

Charlie sighed and smiled. “Thank you.” He took a step toward the plinths, and then passed through to the path beyond. A few steps and he turned to look back, but plinths, shattered table, and the rat who was Nocturna were gone. Only the bright moon remained to cast its silver glow upon the land of dreams. He would not see the dread bargain again.

“I have so many mothers!” He chortled to himself as he returned to his nightwatch over the dreams of Keepers.

 

 

Thursday, June 24, 724 CR, Ere the Dawn

 

Charlie rose early the next morning before either Hogue or Jackson could stir him. He slipped on his robe and quietly made his way through the fresh thrushes, tiptoeing past his body servants as they slumbered on their cots between his quarters and the hall. The whole house was silent; not even Jeremias the Chandler was up to light the hall lamps. As a rat Charlie did not need the extra light and knew every passage in the Sutt home by heart.

But his nose did detect a familiar musk that had recently trod the hall. He followed the scent out to the main family hall and smiled when he saw his father leaning against one of the narrow windows overlooking Keeptowne. Through that window he would see the dawn come.

The rat's entrance did not go unnoticed. His father smiled to him and beckoned him to come closer with one paw. Charlie continued to walk as silently as he could across the rich carpets until he was at his father's side. They both gazed into an indigo sky as one by one the stars dwindled from sight. Neither said anything for several minutes.

It was Malger who broke the silence though only in a whisper. “Dawn will be here soon.”

Charlie nodded, twitching his whiskers. “And the streets will be clogged with travelers trying to leave Keeptowne.”

“Euper will be overrun for two days.”

“It will be at least three before life returns to normal.”

“At least.”

Charlie said nothing for a time and neither did Malger. After a minute of silence the marten lifted one arm and set a hand upon his son's shoulders to pull him closer. Charlie leaned into his father and smiled. His father smiled in return.

“I spoke to Nocturna last night, as promised.”

“And?”

Charlie took a deep breath, straightening to his normal height, and let his powerful rodentine incisors show fully with his smile. “I Dream, still. I'm ready to seek a thief with you, Father.” The fingers of one hand rose to touch the glimmering mithril crescent moon pendant upon its chain about his neck.

“It will be difficult. We only have another month before your mother, sister and I must leave for Breckaris.”

Charlie stood taller on his toes. “We are Sutt, Father. We will catch him.”

Malger pulled him tighter. The first rays of the rising sun glinted off the marten's fangs as he smiled.

 

 

**** THE END ****