Once she cleared the Glen treetops, Jessica followed the line of mountains, climbing high up to where she could see over the nearest peaks. The air was cold, but her feathers kept her warm. To make things even easier, she shrank into her pure hawk form which was well-suited to such heights.
After spending almost eight months traveling with both Charles and James, she knew them very well and not just their physical appearance. The way the Curse attached itself to each of them was also an old friend of hers. And as a Sondecki, the rat's magical essence moved in very peculiar ways through his body, circling an inner inaccessible core of power like a whirlpool. Once she was close enough it wouldn't be hard to spot either of them.
Jessica opened her vision to the streams of magic but saw nothing unusual. Disappointed but not surprised, she kept on flying toward the mountains and the sea beyond.
Angus woke to a horrible headache and a slight ringing in his ears. His chest seemed very heavy and cold too. He blinked open his eyes and tried to lift an arm to brush the snow from his face, but his arm didn't want to move that easily. Shaking his head back and forth, he blinked and glanced down at the mounds of snow resting atop his entire body.
"What in all the hells?" he blurted and groaned. It didn't take him long to dislodge the lightly packed snow, and soon he stood and brushed himself off, shaking his body to loose the stubborn flakes. He put one paw to his head and took several deep breaths. The top of his head stung with a fresh bruise. And the ringing in his ears, though light, did make him a little wobbly on his footpaws.
But, a warrior of as many years as he was never disoriented for long. He scanned the snow nearby but saw no sign of blood or even of a struggle. The only prints marring the pristine surface were his own and the hooves of his friend James. Only James's tracks returned the way they'd come.
"What's going on here?" he muttered under his breath. He grabbed his satchel, and pulled out a pair of long swords. He strapped these to his back and then slung the satchel over one shoulder. After adjusting the straps to keep them from jabbing or slipping, he started back down the trail. He followed James's tracks, wondering and wary. But no matter what had happened, he'd be ready for it.
The first of the two talismans on the northwestern face of the mountain was nestled within a large fissure of basalt interwoven with granite. The black basalt had worn away between the shelves of granite on either side creating a natural alcove that arched closed above them like a pulpit. This pulpit overlooked a vast congregation of brush and conifers in the valley between the mountains, as well as further in the distance highland dells that would be teeming with mountain goats in a few weeks.
Charles could easily see the Lutins attempting to cross those gentle slopes, but not this mountain. A rock ledge offered them a winding path that kept more or less flat as it meandered around the slope. The recent storm had covered the path in a layer of snow at least a hand deep, so they kept their pace a slow one to be sure that they did not slip. One fall and they would tumble down a sheer ledge of exposed granite for a hundred or more feet before impaling upon the tops of the trees.
Despite these obstacles, both Baerle and Charles found it a very easy climb. He cautioned the opossum several times not to become confidant but to focus on stepping with care and precision. The confidant climber was the dead climber, a fact that she knew all too well from scaling the trees of the Glen. But she never chided the rat for his caution nor remind him of her expertise.
And Charles appreciated that. The comity that had existed between them for nearly their whole friendship had always been a source of pleasure to him. And they had to keep it that way.
Baerle positioned herself next to the five-bladed talisman nestled in the pulpit and turned to the rat who stood a pace back where the granite wall began. Wordlessly he handed her one of the pouches with Burris's magical concoction, and then licked the back of his teeth as he watched her spread the paste across each blade.
"Baerle," he said softly, eyes ever on the fresh sheen of white snow perched over head, "there's something I've been meaning to ask you for a while."
She turned her muzzle to one side while smearing the paste across the top blade. Her gray snout brightened with the talisman's orange glow. "What is it, Charles?"
"I've wanted to ask this for a very long time, but circumstances, and... and my own fears and sorrows have kept it from my tongue. But here we are, far out of reach of any in the Glen, and there's no better time for me to ask it."
Her face seemed to draw tight as if expecting some vicious blow. "Charles, what is it?"
He gazed firmly at the opossum, noting the way her ears folded back and her bright pink nose surmounted a snout filled with sharp teeth. But his regard settled resolutely on the one blue eye turned toward him and with heavy heart he brought to life the thoughts and feelings that had battered around inside of him for over a year. "Baerle, do you love me?"
Baerle swallowed and her one hand wrapped about the base of the talisman to hold herself up. She trembled. Her face lowered, eye looking anywhere but at him. Her muzzle parted to speak, then closed, her other paw wrapping tight about the fur lining of her jerkin. In a quiet voice she said, "Please... don't ask me that."
Charles kept his eyes riveted to her, a fact that her wandering eye tried to avoid but could not. The words were now free and could not be taken back, and so neither would he back down. "Baerle, I must know. I have so much more to say, but... until you tell me, honestly, what is in your heart, I cannot say more." He swallowed and then added, "If I did, you could never answer me honestly."
She took a deep breath, her eye moistening. "I... I can't."
Charles almost reached a paw out to her, but kept them fixed at his side. "Baerle. I have to know. Do you love me?"
With a deep gasp, and a pained expression, Baerle swung her snout so that both blue eyes, watering, met him. "Aye! I do love you, Charles. I have not stopped loving since I met you. But... I'm trying... I'm trying so very... very hard to let you go. For Kimberly. Because I love her more as my sister than I love you. I know it. I can't break that. How could you make me say that? How could you do that?"
Charles took a careful step back, putting one paw on the cold stone wall. "Because as long as we said nothing, there would always be that possibility between us." He lowered his eyes and ground his teeth together. "There were a couple moments in the last week when I was tempted... by you. And many more before that."
The anger in her face began to ebb as she breathed slowly, her white fingers uncurling from the talisman's base. "Then... you did love me?"
"I do love you, Baerle. But I can never love you as you deserve." He lifted his snout again, and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. You deserve to know."
She swallowed and nodded, lifting one paw to brush back her tears. "I... I... I don't know what to say."
"Do we need to say anything more?"
She blinked and brushed her face with both paws before heaving a long sigh. "I don't know. I thought I was cursed; I spent the last year in love with a married man, wondering and hoping if I could accept just being his mistress. And a part of me thought I could. But... nay." She looked away and pressed her face against the rock wall and shuddered. "Why can't I love right? Why can't I love someone who will love me back?"
Charles stepped forward and put a gentle paw on her shoulder. "You are loved, Baerle. And I believe that there is at least one man who loves you and would want you as more than just a dalliance, and even more than just a dear friend. I believe he loves you as you should be loved; if only he would have the courage to say it." Charles resisted the temptation to lift his chewstick to his incisors and added, "And I'm saying this partly for his sake. If he doesn't see that you are still in love with me, maybe he'll have the courage to admit it."
Baerle turned slightly, blinking, bewildered. "Who?"
But he could only shake his head. "That's not for me to say. But I believe it to be so. Baerle, you are very dear to me an I want to see you happy. I cannot do that. And it's time we stopped dancing around it. You are meant for another. And I don't want to be in his way anymore. And I don't want to be in your way anymore either."
She swallowed and slowly began to nod, turning to face him. "I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry about," Charles said with patient gentleness. His own heart ached, but it would heal as well. "Let us say no more now. When we get back to the Glen, well, if ever you need to talk, I will listen. I will just listen."
Baerle stared at him for several seconds before flinging her arms around his back and lifting him off his feet, iron shoes, pack, and all. He gasped in surprise, and then wrapped his arms about her back, hugging warmly if not with as much need. She put him back down a moment later, and with her eyes still running but her snout broken into a faint smile, she managed to say, "Thank you, Charles. No more then. Dear friend."
He smiled back and then gestured to the talisman. "Well then, dear friend, shall we finish up here and move on?"
Her paws lingered at his sides a moment longer as she took several deep breaths, her smile steadying and touching her eyes anew with each one. "Okay," she said at last, her voice soft but no longer shaky. There was a confidence in it that knew it would feel better in time. Her smile dimpled her snout, and then she turned back to the talisman and picked up the pouch of the woodpekcer's strange paste.
Charles stretched and felt a vast wave of relief. He'd finally managed to get through that and it hadn't hurt as much as he thought. He still felt an agony, an almost emptiness in his heart, but it wasn't Baerle causing that. And he felt an odd sort of throbbing in his ears and mind that swelled into a lancing pain. He brought both paws to the side of his head and winced wondering where that had come from.
"Charles?" Baerle asked, glancing back from the back of the alcove in worry. "Are you okay?"
"Something..." he muttered as he looked up, a rumbling sound joining the sonorous throb. His eyes widened in horror. "Stay there and hold on!" He shouted, even as he tried to focus on sinking his body into the rock. Above them the wall of snow had broken free and was tumbling down the mountainside toward them.
Mountain climbing had never been so easy. With the iron bell gripped tightly in his right hand, James scaled up the side through the fresh-fallen snow as if he were taking a stroll through the Glen commons. He ascended with a speed and a surety of balance that would be the envy of a mountain goat, rising up above the path where Charles and Baerle trod. Neither of them would have been able to see him through the glare of the midday sun, but he could clearly see the path below and the paw prints they'd left behind. Very soon he would see them.
Though the clapper did not strike against the side of the cracked bell, he could feel its tolling reverberating up his arm, around his heart like a hummingbird flitting from blossom to blossom, and then to his mind where it resounded expectantly like a hunter waiting for the game to come. The donkey breathed with that rhythm, the colors of the sky dimming to an iron gray as cold as the mountains.
The minutes fled from him in a torrent. The cold air wrapped about him, permeating his fur-lined coat, and sinking into his flesh. Beneath his hooves the snow parted to be met by the rock beneath. This he pursued until the path reached a small ledge overlooking a crevice of basalt through the mountainside. A few dozen feet below him he could see the talisman. And standing there just beneath him was Baerle and that rat. He had his filthy arms around her and she him.
"Nevermore," he muttered, lifting the bell over his head.
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
"Nevermore," James said again, lips quivering with each syllable.
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore.
"Nevermore!"
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore.
"Nevermore!" James swung the bell downward striking the rock with its bore. The tone that bellowed forth shook the mountain. His eyes flung their rage at the cowering rat as the snow around him thundered down the mountainside with the voice of the bell.
At least three miles ahead across the mountains a brilliant plume of light smeared with a darkness unfathomable erupted. Jessica's chest tightened and she beat her wings even harder as she could see with her natural vision half the face of one of the mountains begin sliding down.
It had begun. Whatever James was going to do, he'd already started.
She hoped she wouldn't have to kill him to stop Marzac's evil.
Angus's head still hurt, but he'd been in worse shape before. The ringing in his ears had grown ever so slightly in its intensity as he traced James's path back down the side of the mountain until they came to where their paths had forked that morning. The donkey didn't follow Charles and Baerle along the northwestern flank of the mountain, but struck out on a higher route that quickly ascended across almost sheer rock. Angus scratched his head and shifted the swords against his back.
He knew that James was a skilled climber, but even the donkey wouldn't have been able to scale that wall without first chiseling hand and hoof holds. Something else was going on.
He grunted as the ringing in his ears pressed further against the inside of his head. He growled low in his throat, and then blinked open his eyes in horror.
Angus stared down at his paws, touched his ears, folded them against the sides of his head, and snarled. The ringing. Strange, even inexplicable behavior from James. It was all connected. Somehow, he didn't know how, James was responsible for what happened to Berchem, and now he was going after Charles and Baerle.
The badger straightened his gear and started rushing down the path after the rat and opossum when a loud rumbling began shaking the mountain beneath him. He'd heard that sound and felt that shaking before. His heart beat with every prayer he could think of to every one of the Pantheon.
He didn't know anyone that had survived an avalanche. He hoped he soon would.
Charles drove his arms into the stone, the gray creeping up his arms and over his shoulders as he pushed deeper and deeper into the ledge. The wall of snow rushed toward him with the ferocity of a Sondesharan sandstorm. It raced down either side of the crevice, parting at the top of a ridge some distance above them, before flowing back together just in front of the rat. The torrent miraculously rushed past Baerle who seemed safe inside the crevice before pounding into the rat.
Charles drove his face into the stone beneath him and shuddered as he felt the onslaught batter across his back, grasping and dragging him backward from the stone as it caught his pack and yanked. He pulled his tail in close as best he could, the battering searing at his stony flesh like a million ribbons dashing against him. He could feel the straps on his pack tearing and as the avalanche continued to pound into him, the resonance reverberating through his mind like the wild peal of bells, minute after minute of unremitting agony that made him scream within the confines of the mountainside, the pack finally broke free and was swept from his back and down into the valley below.
Food, spare clothing, his bedding, and half of the pouches with the magical paste were all gone in a moment and lost forever. The only relief Charles felt as the snow continued to tear at his back was that his Sondeshike had turned to stone with him and was safe within his cloak now pushed into the rocky outcropping.
Eventually, the avalanche subsided, and Charles, shaking and weary, lifted his head and gazed upward. The rush of snow had pushed him, even through the stone, down the mountainside a good twenty feet. With one trembling paw after another, he climbed back up the now bare rock, hoping and praying that Baerle had been kept safe in the crevice.
When he reached the ledge, he saw that the avalanche had also blown him back the way they'd come, as the crevice was a good thirty paces away. He saw Baerle at the edge peering out over the precipice with a fearful look in her eye. The rat scrambled to his paws, still aching in his head, and tried to wave to her.
"No!" a familiar voice shouted from up above. A gong sounded, cracking in the air like a fist smashing the earth. Charles crumpled to his knees, putting his paws to his ears, even as he searched the mountain for the source of the voice.
Sliding down the stone on his hooves, with the cracked iron bell in his right hand and a short sword in his left, was his friend James the donkey. A wild look filled his eyes. He came to a stop as if unseen hands guided his fall only a few feet in front of Charles. He pointed the sword toward him and fumed with a high-pitched rage. "You! How can you still be alive? I hate you!"
Charles blinked in dumbfounded horror as he climbed back to his feet and reached for his Sondeshike. "What are you talking about, James?" he asked as he gripped the compact Sondeshike in his right paw. "What's wrong with you?"
James stepped forward, swinging the bell so that it pealed with a groan that made his stomach turn end over end. Charles gasped, fighting with all his strength to keep standing. The donkey's thick lips quivered and his nostrils stretched as if they were about to cast forth fiery bolts from within. "I have to kill you, Charles." His voice, unrestrained yet almost apologetic in its severity. "I have to kill you so she can be mine. Nevermore. Nevermore will my soul find itself alone!"
James drove forward with a feint from his sword. Charles, still not comprehending anything that was happening, extended the Sondeshike and batted the donkey's sword away, before taking a step back along the path to keep his distance. "You're talking madness, James. Who is she? Baerle? She's not mine at all."
White rimmed his eyes as he smacked the bell forward, another concussive tolling that made the rat's knees buckle for an instant. He poured his Sondecki strength into his legs and kept them still, but only just. "Liar!" James screamed before jumping forward and trying to smack him across the snout with the end of the bell. Charles ducked out of the way and swung his Sondeshike to intercept.
The gong-like peal that echoed from the collision made Charles's mind blank. He wailed in agony as he fell backward, his entire body quivering and struggling against the darkness of sleep. He felt blood dribbling across his cheeks. Somehow he'd kept the Sondeshike in his paws but only just. As he lay on his back, he saw the donkey stand above him, just out of reach of the rat's legs and tail.
James's hands were wrapped so tightly about bell and blade that his knuckles were white even through his hide. "Liar! I've watched you two... I've seen the way you look at her. And I saw you hugging just now. Sharing that intimacy you can't have while others can see. But I see! I see! And it won't be anymore! Nevermore shall my soul find itself alone. Nevermore shall my soul find itself alone! Never more shall my soul find itself alone! Tolling! Tolling! Bells! The merry bosom swells with the ringing it impels!"
The donkey's fevered voice had given way to a hysterical braying that echoed across the valley. The iron bell glistened and reflected his face as if it were silver.
Charles breathed a single word as his eyes were lost in the endless curve of the bell. "Marzac..." He gasped and with anguish stared into the monstrous and twisted face of his friend. "James! This is Marzac doing this to you. Reject it like Kayla and Lindsey did! Remember what Habakkuk wrote to you! James please!"
"Wretch!" James smacked the bell against rock and Charles felt it vibrate up through his body. Where he struck the mountain it cracked in a line that raced a few feet in every direction. Charles dare not turn himself to stone to escape.
James stepped closer to the quivering rat, keeping the bell lifted and ready to sound, while the sword was held loosely but with clear purpose. One wrong move and his friend would skewer him as surely as he might a Lutin. "You already have a wife, Charles, and yet when I see a woman I desire, you steal her heart from me. When we go into battle together, it is you who steal all the acclaim; everyone recognizes your exploits; they are memorialized in song and ballad! Yours is the first name any thinks of when they think of Metamor's heroes!"
"But what of me? Nothing! Oh, you all keep assuring me I'm a good fighter; but I see the poison in your words! Nevermore will I listen to it. Nevermore will I stand it! You will take thy paws from out my heart and take thy form from out my world!" He rushed forward and swung the bell down at the rat's head.
Charles spun the Sondeshike into the donkey's arm beneath where he gripped the bell. He did not want to hit too hard for fear of severing his friend's arm; only enough force to break so he could subdue him until they could show him how Marzac had corrupted his mind. The bell was clearly the linchpin.
But to his horror, even though his staff clearly struck the donkey just beneath his wrist, no bone shattered and no blood spilled. The Sondeshike merely stopped there as if it had struck an object even stronger than itself. Charles had never seen that happen before, and in his shock, he only had enough time to dive toward the mountain at his left to avoid the blow coming for his head.
"It's Marzac!" he screamed through the gong like blast filling his mind. He wanted so desperately to shrink into his beastly form and scurry away where the donkey couldn't find him. There he could hide away from that carillon, that monstrous carillon that towered over them with such unremitting hostility and watchfulness. Only little animals were beneath its imperious gaze. He could be safe if he just lived like a normal rat.
Charles pushed those thoughts away as he rolled right back into the donkey's legs, overbalancing him for one hopeful moment. James waved his sword arm in the air, before lifting his right leg and straddling atop of the rat, now once again on his back. He lifted high the bell, and with his face a rictus of loathing, moaned, "And who tolling, tolling, tolling, in that muffled monotone, feel a glory in so rolling on the human heart a stone. You stone. You... stone. You... you... get thee back into the tempest and the night! Nine will unlock. Nine will unlock."
James swung the bell down. Charles lifted his Sondeshike, and felt the blow lance down his arms and through his body, filling them a single note that echoed back and forth like a living thing brought forth, a flame now dancing at the end of a candlewick waiting for its brethren to join it.
Charles had enough strength to keep his Sondeshike aloft to ward off the next two blows, but then even the might of the Sondeck failed in him. The bell crushed against his chest, arms, and face with the next four blows, bruising his flesh and breaking his bones. Blood rained down his snout and arms as the harmony swelled precipitously, seven voices now joined in discordant polyphony imbuing his body with an alien rage that made his eyes stream with tears.
With what little was left of his strength and flesh, Charles whispered a plea to whatever remained of his friend, "It's Marzac, James. I forgive you..."
And then, before the next blow could come, he heard a scream and saw through bleary eyes something leap onto the donkey's back.
James could feel the will of the carillon alive in him in a way that no mere words could convey. Nine rings, nine tones filling the rat and it would be over. His body would burst asunder from the energy filling him, and the carillon would itself be manifested beyond the boundaries of the cracked iron bell through which it acted. There would be nothing it couldn't give to him in recompense after.
Before he could convey the eighth tone, the eighth bell of that mighty Marzac carillon, something landed on his back and grasped him all over with arms, legs and tail. James screamed his rage and toppled backward against the rock, trying to swing the bell back to brain whoever it was that grasped him, his eyes so filled with the rat's blood that he couldn't resolve the screaming and clawing image that danced from one eye to the other. But try as he might, he could not connect the bell to flesh.
James took several more steps back along the narrow ledge as the claws grasped his right arm, pinning the bell as far from him as it could reach. James snarled, flat teeth grinding together, and he spun on his hooves in a tight circle, flinging out his arm, and the creature grasping his back.
To his surprise, it was Baerle. The opossum landed in a heap before him, limbs a scatter but gathering beneath her to strike again.
Trash of all trash!
How can a lady don it?
Tolling!
James shook his head, staring in horror at the fear in her eyes. He couldn't strike at her. Habakkuk had even assured him of that in his own strange way. "No!" James said, holding out his sword and warding her back, even as he drew the bell closer. "Stay back, Baerle! I'm not going to hurt you. I love you!"
"You aren't James!" Baerle cried, as she drew her blades and took a step closer. "James would never hurt his friends!"
Trash of all trash! Tolling!
Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night! I feel ye now – I feel ye in your strength!
"Baerle," James shrieked. "Get back! I'm not going to hurt you!"
Yet the ear it fully knows. Yet the ear distinctly tells.
James glared at the bell and shouted. "No! You're wrong!"
"James, destroy it! It's evil!" Baerle gasped as she brandished her daggers and feinted toward him.
They are ghouls!
"No!" James shouted in anguish as his eyes were filled with a monstrous reflection from the iron bell, his own face turned into a beast as vile as anything that had attacked them in the swamps. Marzac. This was Marzac in his hands and Marzac with which he'd struck Berchem, Angus, Charles, and very nearly Baerle herself.
Bells! Bells!
James screamed in horror as he fell back against the stone, trying to keep the iron bell still as much as he could. Two more strikes against the rat and whatever evil had sought to climb out of Lindsey's pouch, and whatever evil had sought to consume Rickkter's body would have been set free through the blossoming of Charles's flesh like a rose unfolding in Spring.
He felt the weight of the carillon above him, bearing down like a furnace, sliding along metal gears as it lowered to crush him into a smear of pulp and ichor against a featureless slab, a sacrificial altar that consumed its victims with pitiless hunger. They would do to him exactly what they had once done to Zagrosek and with equal callousness.
James turned the bell in his hand, slowly as his arm trembled and fought with him. He turned it until the crack faced him, the clapper within stirring and lifting of its own accord. "Go back to Hell and stay there! Forevermore!"
He drove the point of his sword into the crack and yanked down on the haft. The iron shattered with a concussion that knocked him back against the path, his upper body tipping over the edge of the precipice. The sword and bell were blown from his hands, and he grasped at the ledge as he began to topple over into the waiting abyss.
A pair of paws grasped his legs and pulled him back. Snow-covered tree tops wavered before him, as well as a slope of rock and snow that had pounded past moments before. But the paws pulled him away from that death, until he could get a grip on the stone and draw himself back onto the ledge and to safety.
With her paws still grasped around his shins, Baerle stared at him in wonder and hope, her face a mix of emotions, but so fine and beautiful for all of that. "James, is it you?"
James gasped and cried. "Oh, Baerle, it's me! It's me!" He grabbed onto her shoulders and held her for a moment, before pushing himself to his hooves. "Charles!" He ran back across the ledge to where the rat lay bleeding and groaning. "Charles, are you all right?"
He knelt at the rat's side, noting the blood coming from his gums and ears, as well as a little spattering his fur-lined cloak and the Sondeshike at his side. Charles blinked and stared up at him with admiration. And through his bruised and broken chest, halting and weak, he said "Never better... now that... the ringing... is gone."
She had perhaps a mile left before she reached the mountain. Jessica wasn't sure if anyone could survive such an avalanche, but something had survived. She could see flares of light, a strange suggestion of a shape forming above the mountain itself, one limned with shade, curving wide enough to encompass the entire mount. A bell. A bell so massive that one ring from it would flatten the entire valley.
And then, just as its definition seemed so real and true, a black plume like an alchemist's flame rose up from the northwestern flank of the mountain, piercing that image and scattering it as if it had never been. Jessica squawked in horror, wondering and dreading what it is she'd just seen.
Her wings sore, she taxed them even more, diving toward the flank of the mountain.
Charles hurt all over and even the few words he'd managed had left him breathless. The harmony of the bells was no longer in him, but the bruising he'd suffered on his face, arms, and in his chest made it impossible for him to even sit up. His incisors weren't broken, but from the lancing pain that riddled his face, he was afraid that his jaws might be. He knew at least three of his ribs had cracked when the bell had struck his chest, but those were easy to heal in comparison.
James, at hearing the rat's words, chuckled mirthlessly for a moment, and then he collapsed against the rock and his entire body began to shake as he wept. Baerle, nestled beside the rat, glanced back at the donkey, and then to Charles. The rat lifted his right arm which didn't hurt as much as his left and waved toward his friend. Baerle frowned, looked over his wounds, then sighed and nodded.
Baerle crept over to James's side and rested her paws on his shoulders. "Are you okay?"
James sobbed, casting a glance at the broken remnants of the bell still wrapped about his sword. "I... I would never hurt you. I'm so sorry."
"I know. Charles knows too." Baerle wrapped one arm around the donkey's shoulders and held him gently. "We have to... bandage him."
James shuddered and began to nod. "Aye."
As the two of them came forward, another voice sounded from behind. "What in all the hells is going on? James? Charles? Baerle?"
"Angus!" Baerle cried with relief. "The bell... it's destroyed. Help us. Charles is badly injured."
The badger scrambled in next to Charles and began to gently poke him with his claws. "Ow!" Charles said at nearly every poke.
"What happened here?" Angus asked as he felt around the rat's face. Charles winced visibly and he could feel the badger's thumbs rubbing against the break in his lower jaw like twin daggers stabbing in his flesh. "Your jaw's broken. Give me a moment and I'll set it for you. It's going to hurt like hell."
If he dared make his tongue work Charles would have offered the badger a sarcastic rejoinder for his brilliance.
"I did this," James said slowly, eyes lowered and his hands clasping and unclasping. "Marzac did this through me. I'm... I'm so sorry! I should have known. I should have..." tears streamed from his eyes again and he sat back down on the ledge, tail pressed beneath him and hooves clopping together through the ice shoes. "I nearly killed you all. I'm so... so sorry."
Baerle knelt at his side and wrapped one arm about his back again. She cast a quick glance at Angus. "Can you see to Charles?"
The badger rubbed his paws together and nodded. "Of course." He braced his paws on either side of the rat's jaws and grunted. "Hold onto something."
Charles closed his eyes and dug his paws into the stone beneath him. The pain that exploded a moment later in his mind made his legs and tail kick, but it was a sweet agony compared to what the bells had done to him.
As soon as Jessica rounded the northwestern flank of the mountain her heart filled with relief. Though the avalanche had cleared the entire face of snow, along a small ledge the four Glenners were all there, and no more sign of taint existed. James reclined in a heap, head between his arms resting on his knees, while the opossum Baerle was at his side speaking soft words. Charles was propped up against a satchel, while Angus wrapped his chest, arms, and even his face in bandages.
James lifted his head as she landed on the ledge and swelled to her normal size. "Jessica! Oh Jessica, it was Marzac. It came for me, and I nearly gave in to it! You have to help Charles!"
Jessica turned between them and folded her wings behind her back. "What happened?"
"I destroyed the bell," James said, gesturing to the cracked remains of an iron bell. It was split all the way to the haft, chunks of metal broken free along the bore. Jessica couldn't see any traces of magical energy left within it, but just staring at the ruined bell made her feathers tremble and her talons scrape. How could an evil defeated still frighten so?
"And Charles?" Jessica turned toward the rat who met her gaze with bleary eyes.
"I struck him with the bell. I beat him with it," James shuddered and lowered his head back into his arms. Baerle rubbed his arm with one paw, her other draping along his back.
"If you can heal him," Angus said, "please do. His jaw was broken and there's only so much I can do about that. A few of his ribs too. We've got a hard climb ahead of us if we're going to get back to Glen Avery."
Jessica crouched next to the rat who looked up at her through the bandages wrapped about his snout with a hopeful expression. While healing magic was not what she had trained in under Wessex, their time traveling together last year had taught her many new things and mending broken bones and soothing bruises was one of them. How much she owed in that to Abafouq, Guernef, or even Qan-af-årael she could not say, but to each she offered a silent word of thanksgiving as she felt with her feathers around the rat's jaws.
Her black feathers glowed faint blue as she whispered the words of power so softly that her beak didn't even move. The rupture in the bones began to mend with each syllable. And she could see the rat's eyes relax more and more as the power spread through his snout.
By the time she had finished healing the break in his jaws, Jessica felt anew the weariness in her body that she had kept at bay these last few days. She briefly considered tapping into her reservoir, but decided against it. These were healing spells after all; there was no need to call on more energy than was required.
Jessica turned her attention to the rat's ribs, and then to either of his arms. When she was finished, exhausted, she almost collapsed onto her tail feathers with a squawk. "That's as much as I can do."
"Can I take the bandages off?" Angus asked as Charles's jaws squirmed beneath the bindings keeping them shut and in place.
"For now. The bones are still weak so he'll need to keep them supported for at least a week."
Charles didn't wait for the badger. As soon as he had the hawk's permission he tore the bandages around his face off and slowly worked his jaws back and forth. "Oh, thank you! The pain is still there, but, at least I can move my jaw again. What are you doing here, Jessica?"
"Burris asked me to help him figure out what was wrong with Berchem. Together we were able to see that it was the magic of Marzac, and when I mentioned a bell, they knew it had to be James. That was this morning. I've been flying here ever since. What happened to you all? How was it destroyed?"
"It wanted me to hurt Baerle," James murmured from his crouch. "I was okay with killing you and nearly killing Berchem, but I couldn't hurt her. I guess you know what I did to him..."
"Berchem?" Jessica asked. He nodded but didn't look up. "Aye, we know. But why did you do that?"
He ground his teeth together and then sighed. "Because of what he said about Baerle." He managed to raise his head and turned both of his eyes toward the opossum. "I hated him for it. But I couldn't kill yet because then I wouldn't have had a chance to kill Charles. Oh.... I'm so sorry."
"I forgive you, James. Kayla didn't really want to hurt us either when she was under Marzac's power. It's no different now. " Charles pushed himself up against Angus's pack so that he was sitting up properly, long tail stretched out between his legs. "Everyone will understand when we get back."
"And Berchem will too," Baerle assured him with a firm grip on his shoulder. "I'll make sure of that."
The donkey snorted and lowered his head back down. "I don't deserve friends like you."
"Nobody deserves a friend like me," Angus retorted while thumping his paw on his chest.
They all managed weak smiles at that, even James. "So what now?"
"We need to find a place to rest for the night. I suggest going back the way we came." Angus glanced across the mountain path and then to his friends. "Two good days of climbing should bring us back to the Gateway." He glanced at Jessica, "Unless you can give us all wings or something."
"Not yet," she replied. "but I will fly back and let Lord Avery know where to meet you. I have to go back and make sure Berchem has recovered now that the bell is destroyed." Her golden eyes turned to the cracked ruin of metal and she shuddered. "And I have to do something about that."
Charles lifted one arm. "I can make something out of stone here. After what just happened I think the mountain will be very glad to donate if it gets that thing off its flanks."
Jessica nodded and then forced herself back on her talons. She walked over to where James crouched. The opossum had not left his side once, though her snout was rife with conflicting emotions. Jessica wasn't sure how much Baerle cared for the donkey, but it was clear that she had some feelings for him, even if she herself wasn't sure what they were.
Jessica bent low and spread one wing to rest on the donkeys other shoulder. "James. Marzac made you do terrible things. But you are a good man. One of the best I've ever known, and one I'm honored to know and call friend. Thank you."
James lifted his head and blinked. "For what?"
"For destroying the evil all by yourself. Lindsey and Kayla couldn't do it. But you did." She pushed her wing claws between his arms until they pressed against his chest. "There's more in here than you give yourself credit for."
His lips quivered threatening a smile, before he managed to say, "Thank you, Jessica."
She patted him on the side with her wing and offered a silent prayer that her dear friend would find the peace in his heart that he needed. Her eyes briefly alighted on the ruin of the bell, then she turned back to Charles who had managed to roll onto his haunches. "Are you ready to fashion stone? I will do what I can to strengthen it with magic."
"I'm already working on it," the rat replied. Beneath his hands the ledge slowly disgorged a solid block of granite. Jessica could only gape in wonder.
March 14, 708 CR
Fair weather blessed their trip back through the mountains to the Gateway, but the exertion taxed Charles more than he cared to admit. Though Jessica had mended his broken bones and soothed the bruises, his jaw ached with every bite and especially when he gnawed. He tried to keep his chewstick away from his incisors, but the longer he abstained, the more painful his teeth became. The discomfort made him surly, but for the sake of his friends he said nothing.
The pain in his chest and arms were exacerbated by the climb, but that he could ameliorate easily enough. By turning one arm into stone and anchoring it within the mountain itself, he obtained better purchase than his fingers alone were capable. This he used when the path narrowed or forced them to press their bodies against the mountain face to navigate around some tight bend. Even with that he was still exhausted to the point of passing out as soon as he laid down for the night. He hated that he couldn't be more supportive of James who still plainly felt guilt over what had happened.
But his friend had Baerle to do that for him, and he knew this was a pain in the heart that could only be healed with time and love.
He woke each morning to a fresh set of bandages around his chest, arms, and snout that somebody had wrapped him in after he'd collapsed the previous night. These were gently removed by Angus before they broke their fast and started their climb. They talked little along the way, preferring as much as speed as they dared.
And it was with great relief and weary smiles when they finally descended from the narrow paths of ice and rock back to the grassy meadow on the northern side of the Gateway. They unhitched the rope from their middles for the last time, embraced in relief, and then walked at an almost leisured pace through the narrow crack between the mountains back into the Valley. The three clear days of sun had warmed the air enough that almost all of the snow had melted, saturating the ground, softening it enough that their paws were muddy by the time they passed out of the Gateway and beheld Metamor Valley again.
But their vista was interrupted by a makeshift camp of tents and the sweet scent of warm food and fresh cider. Perched atop the sentinel stone was a familiar youth attired in heavy woolen greens bearing the heraldry of the bow and axe that marked him as a Long Scout. His face brightened and he leaped from the rock to tumble across the ground and rush toward them.
"Charles!" the young man shouted with glee as he sped toward them. "You made it!" Despite being fixed at no more than thirteen years of age, he still was a hand taller than the rat and as he threw out his arms to give his fellow Long a hearty embrace, Charles had to duck behind Angus to avoid exacerbating his wounds.
"Allart," Charles cried with a laugh, "it's good to see you. But I'm a little injured right now."
Allart stopped and laughed, shaking his head. "Jessica says you got your jaw broken. If it keeps you from talking too much then it can't be all bad."
Charles shot him a withering look, but turned his eyes as a trio of Long Scouts emerged from the collection of tents as well as a dozen Glenners. While Allart welcomed James, Angus, and Baerle and invited them to come warm themselves, Lord Brian Avery, flanked by Alldis, Sir Saulius, Jessica, and several of the Polygamites, brought steaming cups of cider to their friends. Laura, Ralls, and Padraic waited a few feet away to welcome Charles properly. At the back of the tents, a sour-faced skunk watched with arms crossed over his chest.
After the four weary scouts had taken their first sips of the cider, Lord Avery said, "Jessica has told us what she knows of what happened. I know I will be interested in hearing the rest of the tale. That can wait until tomorrow when we head back to the Glen. We've set up places to sleep here that are warm. Derrick and his family have brought sufficient wagons for all of us to ride in comfort back home in the morning."
Angus smiled to the pinto flanking the gray squirrel. "Thank you Derrick, we are in your family's debt."
The pinto whinnied a laugh. "No need; it's a pleasure being of service."
Jessica wrapped James in her wings and the donkey held her close for several long seconds. When they parted, she looked him firmly in his countenance with her large, golden eyes. "How are you holding up?"
James took a deep breath. "Better now that I've had something warm to drink. Are you okay? That must have been a very long flight back."
"I spent most of yesterday sleeping, so I'm fine now. But I can't stay long. I have to get back to Lake Barnhardt for Larssen and Maud's wedding tomorrow. Still, I wasn't going to miss welcoming you two back."
"Give Larssen and Maud our best," Charles said as his eyes wandered to the Long Scouts and then to Sir Saulius.
The knight rat smiled warmly about his incisors, and then nodded to him. "Thy friends hath news that thou shouldst hear. Go to them." He gestured with one paw, but did not approach any closer.
Charles wasn't sure why, but he greatly appreciated his knight's gesture. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Baerle move away from the rest of the group and approach Berchem. The skunk looked at her uncertainly. She put one claw to his chest and said something too quietly for the rat to hear. The both of them walked off into the tents, the skunk's expression even fouler than before. Charles would have his own piece to say to the archer, but that could wait.
Allart followed him over to the other three Long Scouts, and soon all five of them were smiling and saying how good it was to see each other. The rabbit Padraic chided him once again on going on a Long Scout mission without his fellow Longs. The once woman now man Ralls didn't say anything, but Laura who had changed in the opposite direction met Charles's gaze with unbridled delight.
"Sir Saulius said that you all had some good news for me?" Charles asked, wincing at the ache in his jaw but trying not to show it.
"We do," Laura replied, her chest swelling with a deep breath. "Yesterday we heard from Misha some very good news. The source of the plague was found and destroyed. It was some Daedra artifact our enemies sneaked into the Keep. The plague should be over now. Everyone should be safe."
Charles offered a silent prayer of thanks to Yahshua even as his lips split into a grin and his eyes almost watered with years. "Oh praise Eli! But you said should. Have they lifted the quarantine?"
"Not yet," Laura admitted with a little less enthusiasm. "His grace wants to make sure the plague has indeed been stopped, so it will be a few more days yet. But, the plague is over and your family and everyone else at Long House is safe. We should be able to go home soon."
"Oh thank Eli! That is the most welcome news I've had in a long time. And I promise I'll stay in Metamor at least a week this time."
"Oh, you don't have to make a show of things," Ralls said with a soft laugh. "You and your family live here at the Glen. Just gives us all another good excuse to visit Lars!"
"I just knew there was another reason for it all!" Charles laughed with them, and then together as a group they moved back across the clearing with the mountains watching over them to where Lord Avery and the other Glenners had congregated. Angus had one arm around James's shoulder and was laughing warmly, his face bright and untroubled.
"And James here," Angus said with a broad sweep of his arm, "now a more crafty warrior I could not imagine. Why, he even snuck up on me and knocked me out. Me!"
"When there's so much of you to sneak up on, it's not that hard," Alldis pointed out with a twisted grin on his snout.
All of them laughed, the warmth of their hearts greater than the chill of the mountain air. Charles patted James on the arm and the donkey did his best to smile down to him. But the donkey's gaze returned to the break in the tents where Baerle and Berchem had disappeared moments before. Charles understood that look. He turned back to the rest of his friends and joined in their merriment, wincing every time he laughed at one of the badger's jokes.
Evening settled quickly over the camp. Jessica flew south toward the lake only a few minutes after James, Baerle, and their friends had returned from the mountains. The Longs resumed their watch rotation with some of the Glen scouts that had come along, while the rest of them retired to the comfort of the warm tents where they reclined and ate fresh meats and grains warmed by a generous fire.
Charles fell asleep long before night descended. Berchem kept at the back of the tent saying very little, his expression withdrawn; even when he did look up or speak, his eyes never met James or Baerle. And the donkey preferred it that way. Lord Avery, Angus, and Alldis did most of the talking, while Laura provided insights on the situation in Hareford and what she'd learned from Misha the previous evening. James tried to be interested, but found it difficult to keep track of all the names and places.
Once night fell, Berchem was quick to return to his tent, and most of the Polygamites also left. The zebra Lamarck made a half-hearted offer to James to share their hay, but the pinto Derrick dragged his herdmate away before he could even finish his sentence. Lord Avery and Angus discussed the problem of the remaining talismans with Laura, but none of them seemed to think there was anything to be gained by haste now that the plague had come to an end.
Strangely restless, James excused himself after Angus asked him if he'd be interested in helping them manage the remaining talismans in another month. No one tried to stop the donkey as he left the tent and wandered out toward the ledge overlooking the valley. No moon shone to illumine the scene, but thousands of stars sparkled their brilliance above. But with the torches lit behind him, James could make out no other details. He stood and watched his breath mist in the air, no thoughts coming at all.
One of his long ears turned as he heard soft paws approaching behind him. His nostrils stretched and a familiar and comforting scent filled them. He did not turn his head until Baerle was at his side, watching the dark valley with her bright eyes and scalloped ears raised. "Are you cold?" he asked her.
"Not yet. It's beautiful out."
"Aye. It's very beautiful."
"Do you like watching the stars?"
"I suppose. They are pretty. I can probably name a few. Charles taught me some while we traveled together last year. Do you like the stars?"
"I've spent many nights watching them both before and after I came to the Glen. "
James looked up at the stars and took a deep breath. Some shone with a vibrant light, others only became visible after he stared at the sky for a time. It did look different from when they had traveled south, which made it easier to believe the rat's claim that only a few of the stars they saw at night here at Metamor could be seen from his old home in Sondeshara.
"The stars look different if you go south," he said with a long flick of his tail. "Charles says that those shining over Sondershara are all different. And there's others even further south. They don't have a southern star though."
"Oh?"
"Charles says they have four stars that cross each other where the south is."
"He has seen many things," she agreed before lowering her snout and asking, "You... you really do love me don't you?"
James lowered his snout and half-turned to face her. "Aye, I do."
Baerle's paws rubbed one over the other and her face tightened in pain. "I'm sorry I never looked your way, James. You are a very good man. I... I want to try loving you. Forgive me if it.. if it doesn't come quickly. But, I know you are good and I know you'll never hurt me."
"I won't ever hurt you," James said, his heart beating a little faster, uncertain but hopeful. He slipped his thick hoof-like fingers around one of her paws and lifted it to his snout. He pressed his supple lips against the back of her paw and smiled at the edges and with his walnut-dark eyes. "I'm here for you always, Baerle. I love you."
She looked into his face, and blinking watery eyes, she smiled, and then pressed herself against his broad chest. "Just... hold me, James. Just hold me. Let's watch the stars."
James wrapped one arm around the opossum's shoulders and held her close. Her flesh was warm and her musk rich. All about them was silent, a meditative peace he could never have hoped to ask for. The stars above swam in his eyes as he began to cry.
THE END OF INCHOATE CARILLON, INCONSTANT CUCKOLD
Notes:
Numerous quotes were taken from the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The following
stories and poems were used either by the Bell or by James:
"The Bells"
"The City in the Sea"
"The Coliseum"
"A Dream"
"A Dream Within a Dream"
"Dream-Land"
"An Enigma"
"Eulalie"
"To F-"
"To Helen"
"Imitation"
"Narrative of A. Gordon Pym"
"A Pæan"
"The Raven"
"Romance"
"Spirits of the Dead"
"In Youth I have Known One"
"To Zante"