To James's irritation he'd been assigned to scout with the exact same Glenners. While neither Anson the arctic fox nor Ralph the vole were truly bothersome – they were companionable enough in their own way, although they did keep far too close an eye on him – it was their scout leader Berchem who dug into his hide like a burr. He couldn't quite say what about the skunk bothered him – certainly not the scent since he'd long grown accustomed to Kayla's fragrance – but he longed for the end of the day when he could be rid of the man.
They continued their survey of the lands south of the Glen, this time walking along the lake only partially covered by ice now, before following the river through the narrow valleys that fed into the hills and eventually to the Metamor River. James brought his ice axe this time and hung it from his belt loop where the bell had been the day before. The bell was buried in the bottom of his pack; he'd thought to leave it behind after seeing what it had done to the hare, but for some reason he couldn't completely part himself from it and so it sat in the bottom of his pack where it would be safe and present.
The terrain was a little more forgiving that day, though many of the rocks were slick with ice from the river and the early snow melt. James placed his hooves very carefully with each step; he would not give either Berchem or Lord Avery an excuse to take him off the mission. Charles had assured him that one more mistake could cost him his place. The donkey would not provide it.
Nor did he. The day wore on with a faint warmth permeating the air. The needles on the larch and spruce surrounding them glistened with icy drops. Birds sang above them and on every side. The ice-choked stream babbled as it wound its way through tumbled granite and quartz; already the banks were rising. Yet, despite the dangers, he kept his footing and after a few hours both Anson and Ralph gave him no more attention than they did each other.
Berchem continued to check on him, but James did his best to pretend that he didn't see the skunk watching him.
They reached a small outcropping of granite overlooking a flume through which the river quickly descended. The trees dispersed allowing them a narrow view of the land south of the Glen. They could almost see the towers of Lake Barnhardt in the distance, but the intervening hills blocked the city from view. Berchem stopped and stretched, his long tail lowering nearly to the stone beneath his paws.
"Where to from here?" James asked in a quiet voice as he stared at a stand of birch trees rising up at the bottom of the flume.
Berchem lowered his arms and gestured at the makeshift bridge of stone beneath which the water dropped. Beyond the spruce clustered to the edge of the stone outcropping, roots digging into what soil they could find. "We break for a short meal, then we cross the river and return back the other way. Anson, Ralph, check around for anything unusual. James will prepare something for us while I keep watch here."
While the fox and vole disappeared into the woods on either side of the granite vantage, James lowered his pack to the ground and pulled out some of the foodstuffs they'd brought. Wrapped in some parchment was a bundle of cheese, hard bread, and some sausage. This he set aside and pulled out a small waterskin. His breath caught in his chest when he saw the bell glinting in the sunlight at the bottom of his pack. The donkey's lips trembled, stretching forward as if hooks were pulling them toward the bell, before he was able to look away and set his pack aside.
Berchem rested against the edge of the outcropping, bow in hand as he scanned the birch trees at the bottom of the flume. His tail lay back across his legs, the striped tip flitting from side to side. James glanced at the skunk once and then turned to the food. He cut several slices of cheese from the wedge before doing the same for the sausage. He then wrapped all of it back in the parchment until the others returned.
He glanced at the trees behind them, noting their heavy boughs and wide branches and sighed, ears waggling behind his head. "I wonder if Baerle and the others are out there."
Berchem snorted behind him. "Tree scouts don't come this far."
"But could she see us out here?"
The skunk rolled onto his side and slipped back below the lip of the rock outcropping. "No, she couldn't. What are you worried about her for anyway?"
"Oh," James felt a sudden chagrin overtake him. He hadn't even realized he'd been talking out loud. He glanced down into his hands and spread his hoof-tipped fingers a little. "Oh, just, hoping that she's okay."
Berchem studied him for a moment before rolling his eyes. "Forget about her, James. She's not worth it." He crawled back up to the drop-off and continued watching the birch. "Now keep your eyes and ears open. Let's hope there's nothing out there except our friends."
James was too stunned to move. What had the skunk just said about Baerle? That she was not worth it? James felt his heart burn within him and his one hand wrapped about his sword hilt. Was there anything she wasn't worth. He shifted about on the granite block, tensing his hooves beneath him. He could feel the bell thrumming in his bag nearby. His eyes locked on the skunk's back. Berchem concentrated on the woods before him; there was nothing to keep James from acting.
The donkey stood, gingerly drawing his sword, so softly and so gently that it did not even rasp as it left the sheath. His nostrils flared and his tail flicked from side to side, while powerful muscles coated in gray hide rippled beneath his tunic, breeches, and cloak. The sword felt comfortable in his grip, yet it felt wrong as well. He took a careful step forward, hoof finding good purchase against the granite.
A crackle in the brush to his left made James spin and lower his blade. Anson the white-furred fox emerged from behind one of the Spruce with his ears lowered and a wriggle in his black nose. "Looks clear to the east. And is that Jurmas's fresh sausage I smell?" His tail wagged as he looked at James.
"Oh... uh... aye, it is." He sheathed his sword and lowered his ears, couching back over his pack. "It's ready. Just... we're just waiting for Ralph."
He cast a quick glance back at the skunk, but Berchem was still propped against the outcropping. James chided himself on his foolishness. What good would his sword have done him anyhow? He could feel the throbbing, the very tolling of his bell deep within his pack. His lips quivered and his heart beat faster. There were much better ways to learn what the skunk meant by his foul imprecations.
Tolling.
He smiled and curled his right hand, imagining the haft of the bell rubbing against his palm.
Tolling.
"There's cheese and bread to go with it," James said as he lifted the paper wrapped food. "Would you like some too, Berchem?"
The skunk waved one arm at him. "When Ralph's here."
James nodded and handed some of the cheese and sausage to the fox. He took a bit of bread for himself and rolled the morsel around on his tongue and between his flat teeth. He swallowed and added, "I have it for you, Berchem, whenever you're ready."
Tolling.
His ears twitched and he fondly patted the bottom of his pack with one hand.
March 8, 708 CR
There were many advantages to being a tree scout. Being an opossum, it felt natural to Baerle to be scrambling around through the high branches away from the forest floor; it conveyed a sense of safety to her that was instinctual more than coherent. None of the bigger predators could reach her up in the trees, and those few that could climb after her she could easily evade. Or so the little whispers in the back of her mind told her, even if they could not even use words to do it. The feeling of safety was like a shawl draped over her body when she perched on a solid branch, her tail curling around its haft.
One of the biggest was that it allowed her to keep clandestine watch on her friends down below whenever they were in the Glen or nearby. That morning, in the still cool hours when the sky had no sun but brightened like a sapphire in anticipation of its arrival, she chose once again to watch the rat Charles Matthias as he crouched and wept over his lost son in the Follower graveyard.
The boy Ladero's death had been an agony for her, even more so for Kimberly. How well Baerle could remember the many months in which she'd felt that little boy's muzzle at her breast taking nourishment. It was the closest she who was barren would ever come to motherhood. She had cried herself to sleep several nights thinking about that sweet little boy who'd bravely faced a horrific death that he neither understood nor deserved. But the wound had mostly healed.
Until Charles's return had ripped it wide open again. And with it, the long postponed yearning in her heart to be more than just a nursemaid for Charles.
Kimberly had offered to let Baerle be Charles's mistress if her husband so desired her. It had come through tears, but also through a love and pity for the barren opossum that made Kimberly one of the bravest people Baerle had ever known.
Charles knew nothing of the offer. The desire to have Baerle as his mistress had to come from him. And with Kimberly and the other children gone and the man she loved grieving, she knew that she could offer herself as solace. She knew that he was at his most vulnerable now and that it would be so very easy to help him find comfort between the sheets of his bed.
But could she live with herself if she took advantage of him like that? Could Kimberly still love her as a sister if she took advantage like that?
Her tail tightened about the branch as she leaned forward ever so slightly. Below her in the shadowy grove Charles knelt on the ground, his hands pressed into the stone of the marker. He'd brought a lantern with him, and the light glistened off his granite flesh. She'd touched him once when he was stone, and it had been cold and lifeless, yet moved beneath her. It had frightened Kimberly and intrigued his children. Baerle didn't quite know how she was supposed to feel about it.
But as she watched, heart torn, eyes beginning to tear over the poor boy and the family that missed him, Charles began to sink more and more of his body into the marker, arms up to the elbows vanishing within the stone, making it bulge and swell in all directions. Her one hand holding the branch tightened, claws digging into the bark, while her other quickly brushed the tears from her face. The rat didn't stop pushing, forcing his head into the stone cross until it blended like puddy. She gasped as he shoved himself into the marker up to his chest, the vine that wrapped about him shifting to curl around the stone marker.
What should she do? Was there anything she could do? Baerle considered scrambling down the tree to try and stop him before he turned himself completely into a gravestone. Could she even pull him back out?
Baerle would try anyway. She scrambled along the branch with all four paws and started bouncing down the main trunk of the tree from one branch to another before she stopped and breathed a sigh of relief. Charles, after pressing down almost to his waist so that he was but a tombstone with legs and a tail, withdrew his upper body which gained definition with each inch. Baerle breathed a sigh of relief and quietly made her way back up redwood.
By the time she resumed her perch, Charles was standing over his boy's grave now fully flesh again. He made the sign of the yew before his chest, trembled in anguish, before picking up the lantern and walking back toward the Glen commons. Baerle shut her eyes tight to keep any more tears from flowing.
It took her several minutes to calm herself enough to open her eyes. The opossum lifted her gaze up through the boughs of needles, cones, and branches toward the brightening sky. Her breath sagged in her chest and even her tail relaxed and loosened its grip. The trembling in her paws ceased as her eyes absorbed all the interweaving strands of tree before her.
She couldn't. Baerle knew that. With a long sigh, a sigh filled with love for the Matthias family, especially her sister whose heart she was sick of hurting, she knew that she had to let Charles go. Even if he made an advance toward her, she could not let him. For the sake of their family, Baerle offered her love for the rat back to his wife.
The opossum took several deep breaths, marveling anxiously as her heart kept beating. It wasn't broken. Sore, lonely, but still beating. Tentatively, she slid down to where the branch emerged from the main trunk. There she crouched with her head between her knees and her tail wrapped tightly about the bark. Whispered prayers and sobs echoed in her throat, but neither slipped past her snout.
James kept quiet during that day's scouting mission. Berchem lead around the other side of the lake and toward the base of Mt. Kalegris. This time they flushed some game and returned to the Glen with the carcass of a dead elk dragged on a travois, but they still found no sign of Lutins or bandits. Ralph and Anson warmed to him and expressed confidence that he would do well in the mountains in a few days. Berchem offered no such sentiment.
They caught the elk in the afternoon, and so once they'd dressed their kill, they headed back to the Glen. James could hear the bell thrumming in his pack with each step they took. The bell was anxious and eager. Hungry.
After bringing the elk to Jurmas at the Inn – the irony of a deer preparing an elk for feasting struck James as particularly hilarious just then – they reported their findings to Lord Avery before being dismissed for the night. James lingered until the others had dispersed and then leaned in closer to where the gray squirrel and badger sat conferring. "Milord Avery, have I proved myself capable?"
The squirrel frowned, apology writ in his dark eyes and lowered whiskers. Even his tail slowed its jerking from side to side. "You have, James. I'm sorry we doubted you. You will be going once the supplies are ready."
"You are a very capable scout and warrior, James," Angus added with warmth and a bit of pride. "I'll be delighted to have you at my side when we go."
James took a deep breath and nodded, his ropey tail flicking back and forth once with his relief. The bell chimed delicately. He would have his chance to be alone with Baerle after all. He sucked his lips back against his teeth for a moment before asking, "When will we be leaving?"
"In two days," Angus said with a grunt. "Burris should be finished by tomorrow. The supplies are almost ready."
"I'll be ready with mine as well," James said. "Now, I'm going to get something to eat. More scouting tomorrow. Good night, milord. Angus." He bowed his head to them before leaving the brewery.
And he did as he promised. He walked the short distance up the hill and to the Inn. Several other scouts were there, including Ralph, Anson, and Berchem. They were seated in a cluster with some of the other scouts. James joined them, still carrying his pack over his shoulders. Jurmas the deer came by a moment later and offered them each something hot to eat. The donkey didn't even ask what it was, simply agreeing to whatever the others wanted.
Ralph, it turned out, had a veritable library of ribald stories that he could summon with the click of a tongue. James listened and laughed with the rest of them as they ate. His eyes strayed to watch the skunk from time to time, but otherwise he just enjoyed the vole's scandalous tales.
After a dozen, Ralph decided he'd rather drink than talk and so they settled into a few rounds of bock from Lars's brewery. The cheer was infectious, and for most of the scouts, it helped them forget for the night about the terror that was the plague gripping Metamor. But James could never forget his true purpose. The thrumming of the bell against his back kept his mind focused and clear. Each reverberation seemed to dissipate whatever beer he'd drunk so that his mind was crisp and alert like a new dawn.
It took three rounds before the skunk decided he'd had enough. "I've a few things to attend to before I get too inebriated," he said as he stood up and extricated his legs from the table bench. Berchem's eyes were a little jittery, but his tongue was sure and his movements as fluid as they ever were out in the forest. "It's always a pleasure, my friends. But I bid you a good night."
James lifted his mazer toward the skunk while Anson and Ralph and the other scouts all wished him a good night's rest. The donkey lingered a couple minutes more before similarly excusing himself. The fox and vole wished him well and promised to see him in the morning for another day of scouting the forests around the Glen. "I'm looking forward to it," he assured them as he hoisted his sack. The bell throbbed with a silent peal against his spine.
Although he lived at the Inn, he did not head toward his chambers. Instead, he followed the skunk out into the evening twilight. The air was cold and his breath curled in twin plumes from his nostrils. James's tail tuft danced against his hocks. He lifted one hoof after the other and set them down against the hardening crust left behind when the snow had been cleared last. He followed the path from the Inn down to the Glen commons and then north through the first line of trees.
It was in the second line of trees that the skunk made his home. Between a pair of roots that pressed close together nestled the slanted door. It closed with a thunk behind the skunk's disappearing tail, and with it what little light he'd carried through the twilight. James crept around the line of massive trees, careful not to trip over any of the snaking roots as they dug into the earth, and stood for several seconds a dozen paces from the door.
James slipped the pack over his shoulders, undid the drawstring holding the top flap tight, and then shifted through the remains of that day's meal to retrieve his cracked bell. His hide shook as if dislodging flies when his hand met the iron. Thick fingers stroked across that smooth conical surface, savoring the bore; the tips of his hoof-like nails tickled the clapper.
Tolling.
He nodded in silent acquiescence. It was time.
James lifted the bell from his pack and held it firmly in his right hand. After retying the drawstring and slinging the pack over his shoulder, the donkey walked with gentle hooves across the pitted ground until he stood before the door. It angled away from him between the roots and bore no markings to identify it as the skunk's home. But there was a pungent musk pervading the air that made his nostrils twitch. He kicked the bottom of the door with one hoof as if he were knocking.
Berchem's voice sounded beneath him. "Who is it?"
"It's James," he replied. "There was something I needed to speak with you about. I... I didn't want to do it in front of the others."
He could hear the skunk grunt under his breath before saying, "Just a moment." Claws clicked against wooden steps in front of him, and then he heard a wooden bar lifted out of the door. "Come on in."
James kept the bell behind him as he lifted the door. It swung upward, revealing a set of descending stairs at the bottom of which stood the skunk. Berchem stepped out of his way and grimaced. "I don't have much to sit on. What's on your mind, James?"
Berchem wasn't lying. The stairs led down to a single room home. To the donkey's left was an array of fletching equipment neatly organized in racks, while next to them was a clothes chest and armor tree. On a stand in the middle of the room was a lantern providing soft lighting in every nook and cranny. Beyond and fashioned from stone into the roots of the tree was a hearth that had been used the previous night. Next to that was a single pallet with a plain green quilt draped over its length. The Matthias children played in a room larger than Berchem's home.
James pulled the door shut behind him and leaned against one wall to keep the bell concealed for a moment more. "Something you said yesterday has kept me thinking. You said that Baerle wasn't worth it. What did you mean by that?"
Even before the donkey had asked his question, Berchem's expression had been one of mild impatience. The skunk wanted James out of his home so he could get some sleep or whatever it was he'd intended to do. But with the mention of the opossum's name his muzzle turned sour, his eyes darkened, his ears lowered, and his tail lashed back and forth. He growled under his voice, "Just forget about her."
James lowered his snout an inch, letting his eyes more fully bore into the skunk. "I want to know." He curled his wrist back, lifting the bell behind him.
Berchem crossed his arms once, and then uncrossed them, gesturing at the stairs with one paw. "No. Save yourself the pain and forget about her. Now if you have nothing else, please leave me to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be another long day, and we all need our sleep."
Too much horrified to speak!
James shook his head. "No, Berchem. You are going to tell me. What did you mean?" He let slip his arm and struck the bell in the air. The chime cascaded from wall to wall, a clear brazen tone that made his heart quicken. The skunk blinked once and then slapped his paws over his ears and doubled forward, hackles raising along his back.
"What in all the hells?" he shouted, daring to reach one paw out to grasp James's wrist.
But James took a step back and swung the bell again. The gong dropped Berchem to his knees, eyes shut tight, and his entire body quaking with each echoing peal. He gasped, long tongue pressing past his fangs as he tried to find some avenue to escape the ricochet of sound in his mind.
Tolling, tolling, tolling.
James struck the bell one more time, his nostrils flaring as he watched the skunk crumple to all fours and shrink in stature nearly a foot as his body pulled inward as if making himself smaller would help him escape from the cracked bell's sonorous tones.
"Answer my question and I won't ring the bell anymore. Tell me the truth."
Berchem lifted his head and hissed through his fangs. James ground his teeth together, and smacked the skunk in the head with the bell. He flipped onto his back and rolled around, kicking off his breeches in the process, and nearly upending the lantern as the echoing tone rolled on and on.
And he rolls, rolls, rolls.
"Do you want another paean from the bell?" James snapped, nearly braying in a fury that swelled with every throbbing monotone. The skunk's eyes ran with tears as hands that were nearly paws rubbed over his face trying to seal off his ears. His legs twitched in the air, shrunk to only half their normal size, while his tail snagged itself in one of the crossbeams beneath his pallet.
As the tone faded, Berchem's voice began to chirp and churr, and the words that he spoke could barely make the claim to be such. "I loved her." James sneered and lifted the bell for another blow. Berchem shielding his face with one paw and whimpered like a child. "I did! I did!"
They can only shriek, shriek, out of tune!
James's lips flecked with spittle and he stomped his hooves near the skunk's head. "Tell me. Tell me or," his two-fingered hand curled tighter about the handle of the cracked bell The conical bore glimmered with a fiery sheen in the lamplight.
Berchem's eyes were rimmed with white as he stared fixedly at the bell. He swallowed heavily, his limbs and shape ever so gradually resuming human proportions. James glowered at the skunk and twisted the bell back and forth in his hand; the clapper tickled the inside of the bell with a faint tintinnabulation. "Well? In a night, or in a day, in a vision, or in none. Tell me!"
Berchem rolled onto his right side, his hands splaying across the wooden floor as his legs hunched up, his chest heaving for each breath. "She came to the Glen almost two years ago," he said slowly, his whiskers trembling as his snout and tongue formed each word. "From Mycransburg. The last of her family died. She was already a competent archer, so Lord Avery placed her under my tutelage. She was fetching and warmed to me quickly. When I learned that her family was gone, I comforted her. It didn't take long before it became something more."
For the heart whose woes are legion. Yet the ear tells in the jangling, and the wrangling.
James ground his teeth together and steadied his grip on the bell. What a horrid thought it was to think that Baerle had once had feelings for this skunk who dared to say such vile things about her. The very image of Baerle resting her narrow-snouted head against the monochromatic chest fur of this striped, saturnine scout – not to mention running her gentle and nimble fingers through that same coat – inflamed his gorge as if it were a fresh wasp sting.
"Villain!" James sneered with a bray. "You lie about Baerle! She would never be with you!"
Berchem's jowls drew back over his fangs and he hissed back at the donkey. James lifted his arm, ready to strike his bell again, when the skunk leaped into him. He brayed in surprise as a vice-like grip clamped down on his right wrist, while the other hand grabbed him around the throat and squeezed tight. "You little shit!" Berchem snarled as he pushed James back against the stairs. "I did love her! I did! What by all the daedra has possessed you? This bell... this bell is evil!"
James swung his free arm and struck the skunk on the back several times, and kicked with his hooves but the skunk responded by pressing his claws against his neck and forcing him with strength along to buckle toward the ground. Berchem's eyes, once filled with fright, were now livened by rage. "I don't know what this bell is doing to you, but it ends now. "
The stairs bit painfully into his back, and his tail lashed beneath him as he struggled with his hooves to gain some purchase, clattering against the wood as fruitlessly as if it were ice. His chest heaved and his throat coughed beneath the skunk's grip; the world swam above him, the only thing certain was the mephit's burnished fury. He tried to shake his hand to make the bell ring, but he couldn't even summon the faintest of tinkling from the clapper.
What had he been thinking in trying to challenge Berchem like this? The skunk had been training as a Glen scout his entire life. James had barely more than a year's worth of experience to boast of; and no matter how much Charles, Angus, or anyone else assured him that he did have reason to boast, he knew it was just the pity of his betters speaking. What could he possibly do against somebody as experienced as this skunk who was methodically strangling him into unconsciousness?
Tolling...
Even the murmuring of his bell seemed a distant thing to him as the world above lost focus. He vainly tried to pull Berchem's hand from his neck, but the skunk's grip was as sure as a lodestone's. Darkness caressed his thoughts and scampered about the edge's of his vision. His throat ached for a single clear breath. What good were his boasts about killing that Sondecki if a skunk who had no magical ability could topple him and conquer him so easily?
Tolling...
Then again, how could he even claim he'd killed Zagrosek? The massive carillon had accomplished that. He'd merely cut the rope holding them up in that vaulted ceiling. His mind vacillated between the concerted, beastly face before him and the visions of the dark night where he dreamed of joy departed. The vaulted chamber with walls a mile distant swelled before him. How it swelled; how it dwelt on the future.
Tolling.
If he fell unconscious, they would separate him from the bell. Baerle would hate him. Charles would be disgusted with him. Angus would be disappointed in him. And Berchem, he who had cast such vexatious imprecations on the sweet opossum, would always be the stronger than he. James screamed inside as he tried to yank the paw from his neck. The claws dug in deeper as his efforts grew weaker.
Tolling.
His head fell back against the wooden steps, and in his half-waking nightmare, he could see up into the darkened ceiling at the vast rim that stretched before him. The shadows, for a brief moment, glimmering with a translucent phosphorescence, parted to reveal what hid there. James felt as if he were the greatest of fools. The bell he held in his hand was exactly the same bell he had dropped on Zagrosek!
Tolling!
How could it have come all this way with him? Weren't the bells from the Chateau destroyed?
A lonely spirit guiding.
Guiding him, but why?
I dwelt alone in a world of moan, and my soul was a stagnant tide. My soul at least a solace hath in dreams of thee, and therein knows an Eden.
They wanted to be with him. James felt such a certain delight in knowing and in being. The bells wanted to toll and toll for him. They would! This skunk could never silence them!
James straightened his eyes and with one last burst of energy slapped his free hand against the ground as if he held the bell in that hand instead of his constrained right. The air split with a clear tone that silenced all other noise. That single note encapsulated the unity that existed between James and the bell. It did not echo, but lingered like a living presence finally come to dwell in their midst.
Berchem gasped at the sound, his grip on the donkey's neck and wrist weakening as he recoiled from the pressure radiating from James's body. With a snap of his wrist, James rang the bell again, doubling the tone so that there were now two notes shimmering in the air in exquisite harmony. The skunk trembled, trying vainly to keep his grip on James's neck to squeeze the last of his air, but already his claws were slipping against the donkey's thick hide, the callused pads on his fingers losing definition as his arms began to shrink.
Tolling!
James swung the bell again, and the chord hung in the air like a choir of heavenly voices. Berchem's eyes shut tight as he finally let go, crumpling back in a pile of warping limbs and tail. James put his hooves beneath him and stood, towering over the simpering creature. James could feel the three bells cascading over his hide and through his ears. This was their voice proper, and it commanded obedience.
"Now," he said in a firm rumble that nevertheless blended harmoniously with the music of the carillons. "Tell me of Baerle. If she loved you too, then why did she leave you?"
Berchem quivered for several long seconds, trying to crawl toward the quilt-covered pallet, before James stepped on his tail and ground it beneath his hoof. The skunk hissed, but couldn't crawl any further away. The glamor of the bells faded some, but still rang in the air with a crispness like ice at dawn. "Tell me."
"She lied to me," Berchem said through clenched fangs as his head dwindled in stature. "I told her what I yearned for. A family. A son. She knew she was barren and said nothing! Nothing until after I asked for her paw in marriage!" He spat his words and dug his claws into the wood with both hands and feet. His thumbs looked just like his fingers so beastly had they become.
James swung the bell once, but said nothing. The shimmering fourth note clung to the air and battered the skunk's head into the ground. His forehead sank back as his body began to drag along the floor, slipping free of his tunic, and gathering toward his tail where the donkey's hoof kept it fixed. Berchem's claws gouged the wood floor in long narrow trails.
The skunk's fury for one moment vanished. His eyes stared across the small chambers filled with so little and they brimmed with tears. "All I've ever wanted is a son. I could teach him to hunt, shoot, and scout. I could teach him to be a good man." The skunk took a deep breath and then lifted his head over his shoulder to glare at James. "Baerle should have told me she was barren when I told her what I hoped! She lied to me and waited until much later! She lied!"
James kicked him in the haunches with his other hoof firmly enough to snap the skunk out of his tirade, but not so much to actually break the bone. "What did you do to her?"
"I told her we could never be together!" Berchem was almost completely a skunk in body now, yet his tongue could fashion words that seemed to make sense through the sonorous chord. James readied another kick, when Berchem arched his back and sunk his teeth into James's fetlock. A furious bray escaped his throat as he kicked his leg forward. The bell struck three times more in his fury, adding a fifth, sixth, and seventh note to the symphonic utterance.
The cascade of sound battered the skunk across the room, forcing him to shrink until he was a complete skunk. He buried his head into the quilts, frantically digging to escape the chorus. James savored the polyphony, seeing the massive carillons tolling in their belfry where once they had watched over the house of Marzac.
Bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells.
"You threw her away." James said as he walked slowly toward the pallet, his body nearly floating as the waves of sound lifted his limbs. "You cast aside her. She who is worth hundreds, nay, thousands of you! Stupid little beast!"
The skunk lifted his head for a moment, ears backed against his head, and chirped, "There's more!"
James blinked and stood still next to the lantern. He lifted the bell and pressed it against his chest. The warm vibrations coruscated through his heart and veins, even as they fled from the room, leaving a strange sort of silence in their wake. They, those mighty bells, were not gone, only in reserve. And with their absence Berchem's body began to grow again, human definition overcoming the mephit form.
The donkey's voice growled like an ostinato, sullen and bereft of compassion. "What else is there? Speak or I bring eight and nine. You will not survive nine."
Berchem crouched on the pallet tangled in the mass of quilts. His limbs were still short and he had true paws instead of hands, but his head had regained its human stature. A thin line of blood trickled from one of his ears. He barely managed to make his ragged voice work, "Last year I was very drunk one night. So was Baerle. We came back here as if nothing had happened between us." He paused for breath, dark eyes warily watching the bell, but what fight was left in him seemed to be reserved for telling this final tale. James lifted the bell half an inch and the skunk quickly resumed. "We weren't so drunk that we couldn't figure out what a man and woman are supposed to do. And it was... quite wonderful for a little bit. And then she called his name."
A dark hand gripped James's heart and his ears lifted high over his head. His tail fell straight between his legs and his nostrils widened with a deep inhalation. "Who's name?"
Berchem looked him straight in the eye, a defiance there undimmed by the lingering traces of the seven bells. "You know. Charles."
James ground his teeth together. "Nay!"
"Oh, Aye! Baerle thought she was a brimming Charles!"
He shook his head back and forth, braying a scream. "Nay! It's not true!"
"Of course it is! You've seen the way they look at each other. She's his mistress as surely as Nasoj is an damn wizard! And that's why I told you to forget about her. She's a brimming slut who'll break men's hearts just to get a little more tail!"
James swelled to his full height and drew his lips back across his teeth. "You! You!" He lifted the bell over his head. One swift blow would cave in the repulsive skunk's head.
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget.
The sweet ministrations of his bells stilled that vicious anger and afforded him a moment to consider things clearly. He had seen all of the looks and words that had passed between his beloved Baerle and his friend Charles. He'd known that there was at the very least affection if not intimacy between them. Could he truly deny it now?
No, he could not. But he would not give the skunk's story credence. If Baerle and Charles were adulterers, then it could not have been brought to pass by the opossum. His friend was the culprit; Charles who always worried whether James could handle the tasks before him; Charles who always felt he had to compliment the donkey for every little achievement in order to make it seem greater than it really was; Charles who boasted of his skills as a scout, as a knight-in-training, and even as a writer and anything else he attempted to do; Charles who made friends with everyone he met and could do no wrong even when he betrayed Metamor to her enemies; Charles who had a wife and children already and yet was so greedy that he had to take the one that James loved; how could James even call him friend anymore?
There was no other course of action left to him. It pained him, given that Charles had helped him get back on his hooves after he'd lost everything in Nasoj's winter attack. But had the rat acted out of love for James, or from his own vainglory and for the chance to boast of his charity to a poor Keeper who obviously couldn't fend for himself?
James ground his teeth together, lowering the bell slowly as his rage shifted from the skunk before him to the one for whom he once would have done anything. Charles was even more skilled of a warrior than Berchem. He would need the element of surprise. And he would need Baerle to see the rat for what he really was.
The answer came to him without even any prompting from the bells. The journey into the mountains was the key. There he could unmask that traitorous rodent for what he truly was. But if Berchem were dead, others might know that it was James who killed him. And if Berchem were alive, then surely the skunk would tell others what he'd done and he'd never be united with his opossum.
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget.
He chortled under his breath as the bells reiterated their will. James's eyes fixed on the skunk still cowering in the quilts half-way between a man and a beast. Of course the bells could contend with such a conundrum in so simple a way. He gave the bell one last shake. The eighth tone gushed like a wave from the clapper and the bore, his entire arm shimmering so that it seemed to fade in and out of the lamplight. Berchem's eyes widened once, and then he collapsed unconscious sprawled across the quilt.
James lifted the bell to his lips and kissed fervently, licking the bore as he gasped for breath. He rubbed its smooth surface across his muzzle, and pressed the crack down across his nostrils. Thick lips felt along the edge of the crack, while his tongue explored within, wrapping around the clapper as the tones rang across his ears in ascending arpeggios. Within he could feel the ninth tone glimmering with ineffable potential, the final tumbler to some esoteric lock.
So shake the very Heaven on high with tumult!
James withdrew his tongue and lips from the bell and slowly let the brazen instrument fall to his side. "With Baerle," he said softly, his vision racing with dreams of the opossum wrapped in his arms. He smiled and fancied pressing his lips to her snout, her neck, her breasts each in turn. And then lower. Oh how he longed for that day when she would fancy doing the same and more for him.
He reposed in such sweet reverie for nearly a minute before the donkey finally glanced around the small home. Other than the bell he'd brought nothing else with him. He knelt down and picked up the skunk's tunic and breeches. These he folded quickly and placed next to the pallet where they were in easy reach.
James turned to the stairs but paused after taking a deep breath and recognizing his own earthy musk in the air. While there were several other equines who lived at the Glen, a few donkeys amongst them, no one would mistake James's scent for theirs.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
James nodded to the unseen presence. He noted the two windows in either side of the small home, then turned his attention on the hearth. James struck the flint a few times before he was able to light the kindling. He nursed the little flame with his breath until it contentedly consumed the brush available. James spread more kindling, then added a few larger logs. The fire would last through most of the night.
Cradling the bell in one hand, he crossed back to the skunk, and gingerly rolled him within the heavy quilts to keep him warm. Satisfied, he turned to the lantern atop its stand and extinguished the wick. The crimson glow from the hearth cast strange shadows across the room, but James paid them no mind. He cracked each window two finger widths, allowing a cool crisp breeze to circulate. With it he could almost feel his scent washing away.
James double checked the quilts covering the skunk one last time before climbing the stairs and closing the door behind him. He returned the bell to his pack and hummed to himself as he walked through the Glen, letting the torches in the commons guide him along his way. The donkey's tail even swayed.
March 9, 708 CR
"'Tis our last day of patrol," Sir Saulius said softly as they rode down the southern road at a leisurely walk. "Thou hast been in the saddle for nigh two weeks, my squire. Dost it suit thee?"
Charles had his eyes on the road as it wound in a mostly southerly course through a series of low hills and ever shrinking trees. To their left the ground sloped away to the valley floor, while the near constant squat ridge line to their right kept the streams from washing away the road. They'd already passed the small bridge where the Glen defenders, including Lord Avery's father, had fallen in the days before the Battle of Three Gates, and now were just waiting to see when Lake Barnhardt would come into view.
His mind was lost in thought, pondering what they might see when they reached the fortified town by the lake, that it took the rat a moment to realize that his knight had asked him a question. He blinked, whiskers twitching as he pondered it. So much else was preying on his thoughts that it was difficult to concentrate. The vine curled around his chest and beck gently pulled tight.
"Aye, it does. More than I would have expected perhaps, but, thanks to you, I have grown used to being in the saddle. Having such a steed as Malicon helps." He patted the roan on the neck. Malicon turned his ears back at the sound of his name, but offered no other sign that his attention had been taken from the road ahead. "My hips and back aren't sore anymore either. Haven't been for days."
"Good," Sir Saulius said with a confidant smile teasing the edges of his muzzle. "Thou hath progressed well since thou didst become my squire. I recall thy first time trying to ride Malicon."
Charles laughed a little at the memory. "He gave me the oddest look I've ever seen on any horse." He shook his head and then looked at the knight. Saulius regarded him with a speculative gaze, but Charles couldn't guess what his fellow rat might be thinking. With everything else eating at his mind, there was only one question that he could conjure. "When we reach Lake Barnhardt, would it be all right if we went into the city? I'd like to speak with Jessica while we're there. I won't have another chance for a week or more. Would that be all right?"
Saulius's brow furrowed a little beneath his helmet. "And why dost thou ask me permission to see thy dear companion?"
"You're my knight, and I have sworn to be your squire." In a quieter voice, feeling somewhat irritated that Saulius would choose to ruminate on this subject yet again, he added, "Even if I'm paid to serve as a Long Scout."
Erick lifted one paw and shook his head. "I desire not to argue over thy loyalties, Charles. Thou hast proven to me more times than I couldst count that thou art a true friend and fellow warrior no matter whether thou dost serve in the saddle or on thy paws. I admit that I wouldst rather see thee a knight, but thou must decide on thy own how thou wilt serve."
Charles grimaced and nodded, turning his eyes back to the road of hard dirt gouged and furrowed on either side with wagon wheels so that a small hump ran down the center. "Aye, I know. I've never been able to decide that. I am torn by loyalties to both you and Misha, and to my clan even! But... you didn't answer my question."
"'Twas clear to me," Saulius replied with a brighter tone, an almost marshal staccato as his tongue clicked against the back of his incisors, "that it would delight me to reunite thee with any of thy friends. Though, the hawk does give my instincts judicious pause."
Charles glanced at the knight and found himself laughing despite the heaviness in his heart and mind. The mere image of Sir Erick Saulius, two time winner of the Golden Lance, cowering like a simple rodent before Jessica, one of the most gentle people Charles knew, brought about a mirth uncontainable by simple flesh!
"You just need to get to know her as I do. It's like any other predator here at Metamor." Charles shifted about in the saddle, his tail sliding across to hang off the other side of Malicon's withers. He grabbed his tail with one paw and lifted it onto the pony's backside to rest. "Besides, she might have news about what's happening in Metamor."
The knight's dark eyes widened and he began to nod. "In sooth, I didst not consider that. I wonder what hast become of Julian, Elliot, Goldmark, and Hector." Unspoken was that he also worried about Lady Kimberly and Charles's children.
"Then let's not waste any more time," Charles grinned, giving Malicon a gentle click with his tongue. "We should catch her before Lord Barnhardt can send her on a scouting mission!"
The knight laughed and flicked his reins. Both Armivest and Malicon lurched forward into a spirited gallop.
The plague at Metamor was making Jo the Healer's job more difficult. Not that she had to contend with the plague at Glen Avery, but because every little cough, headache, or general soreness was now feared as being the first stages in that fatal malady. In the four days since news had spread to the Glen, she'd made nearly a hundred visits to every corner of the Glen; many times it was to the very same people. She'd climbed dozens of rope ladders, tree bark, and descended into more burrows in the last four days than she could ever remember doing.
But not once did she blame any of those she visited for their fears. Plague was a word that chilled the bones and conjured nightmares of pain and suffering that made the bravest of warriors tremble. Jo the vixen had never encountered it before in all of her travels with Jono, but they had passed through villages that had been ravaged many years before. The charred remnants of timber and stone lingered where the homes of victims had once stood. Several streets were utter ruins on one side, and sometimes both, avenues that no foot, man or beast, dare trod upon. Where once a prosperous hamlet had thrived, now the remnants struggled to keep each other from leaving.
Jo tried to maintain a cheerful demeanor with each Glenner she visited, all of whom were suffering from nothing other than what she usually tended. But in those precious few minutes when she wasn't visiting one of the many families who lived in the woodland, the vixen had to struggle to keep from crying with her own fears for Metamor and the Glen.
That morning, with the sun still fresh above the mountains, she'd been sent to check on the skunk archer Berchem. He hadn't reported to Lord Avery that morning at the brewery. And the master archer was never late to report in without good reason. Jo wasted no time in gathering her herb basket with its myriad remedies and walking toward his home nestled beneath one of the redwoods north of the Commons. A few onlookers watched but kept their distance as she approached the doors and knocked firmly. "Berchem? Are you well?"
Like everyone else at the Glen, Jo knew the skunk fairly well. He was a scout, which meant that he had received the ministration of her paws and concoctions many times before. While his demeanor was not as warm as that of the badger Angus, he was nevertheless polite and amicable. He was honest, proud, and expected the best from everyone around him, which meant that he could be a little hard and unsympathetic at times. But she'd never heard anyone speak an ill word of him, except a few rumors regarding the way his relationship with Baerle had come to an end.
The stories surrounding those two were often in conflict, and so Jo did her best to ignore them. Who could ever tell the truth of a rumor or winnow the facts from gossip? But at the back of her mind, she couldn't help but half wonder if Baerle and he had endured an unpleasant encounter last night; she hadn't seen Baerle at all for days now.
From behind the door she heard a muffled groaning. Jo lowered her ears and tail, grasped the handle of the door, and lifted it open. The air that greeted her was just as cold as the crisp morning air outside. She shivered as she climbed down the steps, surprised not to find the usual warmth in a Glen home awaiting her. When she reached the bottom of the steps, even without any lamps lit, her fox eyes could see why. Both windows were open a crack allowing a slight breeze.
"Well no wonder you don't feel well," she said with a slight laugh toward the black and white figure curled up tightly beneath several layers of quilts. "Just why did you open your windows? Well, let's get this lantern lit first." Jo set her basket down, opened the receptacle on the lantern, and using her own flint, struck a light. It cast an amber glow about the room. Satisfied that they had light, she closed and locked both windows.
"And to warm things up in here, let's get this fire going again." She put some of the fresh kindling, struck it with tinder, and then added a couple smaller logs atop the new flame. It only took a few minutes with her practiced paws before a pleasant warmth began to radiate from the hearth.
"Now," Jo added, still a little nervous about what she might find on Berchem, "let's see what's wrong with you." She stepped to his bedside, noted the folded garments on the floor next to his head, and then gingerly peeled back the quilt. The skunk lay with his eyes pressed shut so tightly that she could see the muscles in his neck and cheeks straining even through the fur. She could see flecks of dried blood on the fur just beneath his ears.
When she touched him, one of Berchem's eyes opened briefly, before shutting tight again. His left hand reached out from under the quilts and grabbed her by the wrist. Jo gasped; his grip was tight and pulled on her fur. His other hand pressed into her spread fingers, and he started to move his fingers in a familiar array. After repeating the same three hand motions, the vixen recognized them; scout signals.
The first, with the pointing finger and thumb pressed together and raised, while the other three were curled behind looked sort of like the *QUIET* sign. The second was familiar to her after almost two years of seeing to the needs of the scouts, that of *PAIN*. But she wasn't sure about the third. She'd have to bring another scout to read them.
"I can't understand you," she said firmly. "I need to check you for plague. It will only take a moment." But Berchem continued to frantically press the signs into her paw. Hadn't he heard her at all?
Unless...
Jo swallowed and stroked her fingers down the skunk's signing arm. He stopped and let go of her wrist, his arms pulling flush to his naked chest and quivering. She leaned over him and, being careful not to get between the light, peered into his upturned ear. While it had been easier being a healer when everyone she looked after was still human because all of their various body parts were roughly the same, at least for most of her patients this was still true for ears. And in studying Berchem's ear, she had to admit there was nothing inside that looked any different from any other mammal-based Keeper she'd ever examined. She couldn't even see where the blood had come from.
Resting one paw on top of Berchem's quivering arms, she breathed into his ear and asked in a normal voice, "Can you hear me?" But if he did, he gave no sign of it.
With a long sigh, the vixen moved her paws down over Berchem's shoulder and gently tugged. After a moment, the tension in his shoulder pressing his arm to his chest relaxed and she was able to peer beneath his armpit. Even through the thick, black fur, she was able to quickly check for hideously swollen glands, one of the surest signs of the plague; nothing. Relief filled her heart briefly, but then worry over the mysterious malady returned.
Something had happened to Berchem's ears, but what and how Jo couldn't fathom. She straightened and said in a loud voice, "I'm going to fetch one of the other scouts, and then I'm going to make something to help with the pain. I will be back soon."
With a firm grasp, she pushed her right paw into the skunk's, and made one of the few signs she knew with confidence to let him know she'd return quickly. Berchem, eyes still pressed shut tight, nodded twice, and then he pushed himself further against the pillow. Jo stepped back, jowls trembling with worry, before rushing out the door and toward the brewery.