The Bellringer

by William Timothy Murray

When is the beginning of any story? Is it at the start of its telling? Or is it long before, in the eons of events, small and great, that lead to a tale's remembrance? It may be that any story is merely a journey where the teller guides the listener into a gentle boat and pushes out onto a river already long in course. And during that excursion, the listener may also feel the currents, and experience the bends and shoals formed by the force of history. Afterwards, when the teller of the tale has departed, and the passengers of his boat are safely ashore, they may then gaze farther downstream toward those days that come when the tale they just heard is forgotten and any remembrance of the past is washed away.

  The time of this story began with signs and strange omens that appeared throughout the lands of the earth, and in the seas, and overhead in the skies. A new star appeared, briefly and brilliantly in the eye of the constellation Behemoth, and it lit the ice-covered lands of the north where it shone with the light of a half moon. It vanished after only a week, leaving no trace of itself.

  At the beginning of this story, far to the southwest, and deep within the bowels of the earth, a dragon stirred from its long slumber. Turning over in its bitter sleep, it spat angry fire and smoke, shaking the ground far above his lair as he sent his molten bile through ancient cracks in the earth to the surface, spewing into the air, forming a new mountain with its ash, laying waste fair towns and villages, and smothering the grasslands with soot. For a year the dragon tossed and turned in its angry slumber, its hot venom flowing forth fitfully before all was again quiet and the new mountain shook no more, cloaking itself with gray vapors under which its shoulders became green with the next springtime.

  That following summer was long in the old Eastlands Realm, not so hot, but pleasant with ample rain throughout so that by Midsummer's Eve the first crop of corn was already well tall and the woods were full of blackberries in green profusion. The mead of the region was deemed the best in many years and the wine that was vintnered that year in great quantities by the Eastlanders was for a long time sought after and well-savored as of special quality and rare lightness.

  In faraway Masurthia, the coastal islands and capes were battered by typhoons. Every seaside tree and house within twenty leagues of the Bay of Famatir was swept away by the year's end, causing the peoples of that realm terrible hardship and sorrow.

  Meanwhile, in the Thunder Mountains and throughout the foothills of the forest surrounding them, all of the trolls disappeared without trace. That was not a bad thing, some held, for they were a cruel and clumsy race and now the forest roads were suddenly clear of them. But, since their passing was so uncanny, some wondered what worse thing might now lurk in their place with the secret power to rid the land of trolls. Witches, maybe, or galafronks, even. Rumors began to filter out of the Thunder Mountains concerning bandits and marauders who had taken up in those mountains. However, such talk may have been much overstated by fireside and bedside, especially in the Eastlands where the elders liked for the youngsters to know their place.

  Then, in the dry, hot deserts of the southwest, the Dragon People stirred. Ever at war with their neighbors to the north, they ordered their armies once again, formed their ranks, and gathered for a new conflict. Within their lands, they cruelly put down any who opposed them, and whosoever was not killed or could not escape became their slaves and thralls. So Belsalza, Emperor of the Dragon People, rid his court and his lands of any opposition and secured his domain as his forebears had done in ancient days. Soon his armies were on the march. There were some who continued to oppose Belsalza, even within his own lands, and they did so valiantly for many years, forming secret leagues and dangerous alliances.

  Amongst the sailors and fisher-folk of Glareth on the east coast of the world, there spread word of new and wondrous sea creatures in far off waters. They were like fish, it was told, with butterfly wings that danced upon the waves about their ships and boats. Along with many of their watery kind, these lovely creatures dove and swam and danced upon the waters, calling to the seamen in a strange language like the chiming of soft bells, singing melancholy songs and songs filled with the music of delight. Upon their return, a deep enchantment came upon many of the seafarers, and they longed to go back to the strange and beautiful wave-dancers and to hear once again the watersongs. Of those seafarers whose hearts were filled with such yearning, and who did return to those waters, very few were ever seen again.

  Far into the northern and western lands of the earth, and high up in the highest tower that overlooked Duinnor Realm, the secluded King of the Seven Realms learned of these strange and wondrous and foreboding things. As his agents came from far and wide to bring rumor and tidings, the King's astrologers made their observations known to him, his counselors gave their considered opinions, and his wise men brought their books and scrolls to show him what may have been written of old about such things. The King mulled over all that he heard and all that was shown him. He sent forth more of his agents to do his will, some to watch, some to listen, and some to lay in wait for any who might usurp his power.

  Others watched, too. Some with their eyes, others by casting their stones and their bones, and a few by listening to their hearts and the murmurings of the earth and the stars. Thus, while the King was filled with dread and worry, though he never breathed his fears aloud, these others, scattered throughout the world, saw reason for hope in the subtle shift that was taking place in the cosmos, upon the earth, and within the seas.

  As the years passed, some things changed only slightly with little commotion made or notice taken. The scattered ruins of the First and Second Ages gathered more dust and covered themselves a little more with vines and forest. A few more scrolls were lost to the tireless work of moth and mildew, their words never again to be seen. Fewer people cared to learn the Ancient Speech or to tell the stories of the beginnings of things or how Men came to these shores. A few more shadows crept into places once full with light, a few more paths disappeared forever under root and brush, and once-great highways grew thin, like rivers in a long drought, until only the thread of them remained. The neglect of people was matched by the attention of nature, and so many honored barrows of old became merely tree-covered hills. And there were fewer still of those who were here first, who remembered through their long years the joy of a young world not yet troubled by strife or sadness, a time when their hearts were not yet hardened by the melancholy passage of steady Sir Time whose tread is too light to be heard, and whose path can never be retraced.

  Yet all these strange tidings and signs and slow change, seen and unseen, meant little to the peoples of the old Eastlands Realm, and their years were full of peace and bounty. They quietly flourished amongst the confusing happenings of the world, paying little heed to rumors and tales from across the mountains or over the plains. The years passed, one after another, with little difference from one to the next. Disputes were few and petty, families grew, and many grew wealthy, if peace, bountiful harvests, fat babies, warm hearths in the winter, and cool rains in the summer are any measure of wealth. The springs and summers as well as the autumns and winters all had their toils and joys, their beauties and their bounties, and generally each season passed into the next not too quickly, nor too late.

  And so that is how things were on a morning of the last summer of the Second Age, though few knew it would be the last. So early in the morning it was that the night's coolness still hung in the misty air as Mr. Robigor Ribbon opened his shop doors and pulled back the curtains on the display closets. It was a sundries store, packed with everything from dried herbs dangling from the ceiling to bolts of cloth on tables. There were clay jars full of buttons and others full of beans, racks of pots and pans, shelves of candles and lamps, kegs of oil, crates of tea, blocks of soap, and bags of seed. There were racks of hats, vials of ointments, a shelf of pipes and tobaccos, bottles of ink, a vase of quills, a corner of tools and ready-made nails, a barrel of pickled cucumbers. And there was even a small case of modest jewelry—mostly broo
ches and bracelets and necklaces (although there were a few nice rings)—and it had a lid with a looking-glass on the underside that, when lifted up to reveal the contents of the case, provided a way for the buyers to admire themselves. It was just a little shop, and it was so packed and stuffed that it was a tight squeeze to pass between the tables and shelves, but it had years of cozy wear on its strong wooden floors. This floor, and the cellar below, had served as Mr. Ribbon's place of business for many years, ever since he left his grandfather's farm out in the county countryside. Already an astute trader of grain and produce, it was that year that he made his first arrangements with the blacksmith to sell ready-to-use tools and farm implements on commission and had soon after made trades and deals and bargains with craftsmen and traders far and wide. On a summer day twenty years earlier, he purchased the building here in the small town of Passdale, and that very same week he asked Mirabella Tallin to marry him. A year later, they were wed, and the upstairs floor became their new home, though in terrible need of repair. By the following summer, it was also the home of their son, who was now growing into a fine young man. Mr. Ribbon was pleased at how his wife had made such a cheerful and cozy home for them upstairs, and he was justly proud of his shop and of the important role it continued to play in the life of Passdale and the surrounding County Barley.

  Mr. Ribbon could hear the clatter of pots upstairs as Mrs. Ribbon put away the breakfast wares, and, as he settled onto a stool at his desk, he heard a slight creak on the stair behind him.

  "Ye best tread lighter to sneak up on yer ol' man," he said, putting on his spectacles and opening a ledger book.

  "I was not sneaking. I was walking natural," retorted a boy who came up from behind and shoulder-bumped his father (something he would not dare do if Mr. Ribbon had a quill in his hand, for young Robby knew the business lay on every stroke of his father's pen). Mr. Ribbon looked at the young version of himself, smiling back. The boy, having just turned twenty-one, had his father's broad shoulders and, although Ribbons might never be tall folk, Robby was still growing out of his teenage scrawniness and showing all the signs of the Ribbon stockiness to come. They also shared the same black hair (though one was curled with some silver threads), the same chocolate eyes, full nose, and, as of recently, the same height.

  "Ye'll be taller than me, if ye keep havin' these growin' spurts, an' if yer mum keeps feedin' ye so!" he uttered aloud before he could stop himself.

  Robby laughed awkwardly at the sudden sentimental outburst. "I already am! By a couple of inches, at least! Stand up!"

  "I'll stand up to hand ye this!" the father replied, getting up and reaching toward the wall where the cleaning tools waited. Before Robby could protest, he was given a broom.

  "Why don't ye take care of the front this mornin' whilst I look at what needs doin' today."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Thank ye. An', son?"

  Expecting additional tasks, Robby looked back at his father.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Ye did a good job with the books, yesterday. I went over 'em last night an' ever'thing was perfick. Yer numbers whar right, an' yer stock estimates whar good, too. An' I agree that we oughta forego any more pelts. They're in the way an' ain't nobody int'rested in 'em. Good job. Good job, indeed."

  "Thanks, Daddy. I want you to be able to count on me to help."

  "I know I can, son. I know I can. Ye make Mirabella an' meself most proud of ye."

  Mr. Ribbon turned back to his ledger as Robby walked out onto the store's porch. Across the dirt road that ran in front of the store was a low stone wall bordering the Bentwide River, flowing away to Robby's right and thence southward. Across the river, the far banks rose up gently into fields of grain. Just as he stepped out of the store, the sun broke the mists over the distant ridge and bathed the morning in its golden light, setting the mists that rose over the river aglow as they burned quickly away. To the northeast, he could see the track of the river, marked by dense poplars along its banks, bend away toward the tall bridge that spanned the water, its stone towers just visible through the thick foliage. He closed his eyes, yawning wide and stretching his arms out, one holding the broom. With his eyes still closed, he listened. Already, Clingdon's anvil was ringing from the other side of Passdale, behind Robby, and he could barely hear the creak of Greardon's waterwheel, turning the stones of his mill just down the road to his left.

  He turned that way to begin his sweeping, heaving another yawn as he opened his eyes, and saw for the first time a fine-looking, rusty-brown horse in saddle tied at the end of the porch, its head bowed out of sight to munch the grass below. A wave of surprise and bewilderment washed over him as he took a step toward the animal, but nothing like what he felt in the next moment as he tripped and tumbled over some mass at his feet. He hit the floor with a thud, and, rolling over, found himself gaping into the face of a strange man who had apparently been asleep with his back against the store wall and his legs sprawled across the porch. He had many weeks of travel-beard on his sun-darkened face, and brilliant green eyes that now opened below the brim of his hood and fixed Robby. The brown and olive cloak to which the hood was attached wrapped around the stranger like a blanket, mud-spattered and dust-covered.

  "You should watch where you are going," he said to the boy plainly.

  "You should watch where you sleep," Robby shot back, more than a little flustered and getting to his feet. "Who are you? And what business have you loitering on our porch?"

  The horse lifted his head and looked on curiously as he munched. Robby, picking up his broom, noticed several things at once as the stranger got to his feet and stretched. He was tall—the top of Robby's head came up to this man's shoulder at best. His hood fell back from his head, revealing shoulder-length, light brown hair, the bangs on his forehead broken by a white streak of hair joined underneath to his right eyebrow by the line of an old scar. He kept his cloak, which fell down nearly to his ankles, pulled around him, but Robby saw that hanging from a shoulder belt was a dark leather travel case, embossed with a strange emblem, and Robby saw also the plain signs of a sword hilt jutting out from under the cloak.

  "Well?" he prodded.

  "Well." The stranger finished stretching and dropped his arms to his sides, looking at Robby with a smile and with what seemed to Robby a familiar squint. "If this place is still Ribbon's, and if Robigor Ribbon is still the proprietor, then I have business here."

  "I am Robigor Ribbon." Robby felt a little petulant after having been unceremoniously tumbled to the floor. It was true; he did carry his father's first and last name.

  "If that is so, then you have shrunk and grown young, and a bit more irksome than when we last saw each other, and yet your memory has grown old and forgetful." The stranger crossed his arms and tilted his head, eyeing Robby with a cocked brow. Robby felt his cheeks redden with embarrassment, as one might when caught in a lie, even though he had not actually lied. "And, yet," the tall man went on, "I do believe we have met, on several occasions, in fact. And though you carry the name I ask for, I think there is another who does, too. And if the other is your father, then he would want to see me since I have ridden hard and long to see him. If not," he shrugged, "I will deal with you."

  Robby was not sure what "deal with you" meant, and he felt his face turn from pink to crimson, just as he realized that all along he had been somewhat frightened of this man, though the fellow had done nothing to warrant the reaction. "Inside," was all he could squeak out. "My father is inside."

  The stranger suddenly chuckled and grinned, "Surely you don't recognize me, but we fought many a war together on the sand hill and in blacksmith Clingdon's old barn when you and I both were nigh ten or twelve years younger and you were only up to my waist."

  Robby felt a strange sensation come over him as memories unfolded in his head.

  "Ullinseed?" he whispered to himself, then, with more confidence, "Ullinseed! Can it be you?"

  "That is what you used to call me."


  Robby's mouth dropped open, remembering the bright young man that had stayed with them for a season when he was ten or so years old. He recalled trailing after him from here to there throughout the countryside on some business beyond his young comprehension. And he remembered wrestling with him on the kitchen floor over a piece of sweet cake, laughing until they cried. He remembered lying on the floor in front of the fireplace while Ullinseed and his father sat in their chairs smoking their pipes long into the night, while his mother knitted. They talked about all manner of strange and wonderful things and faraway places and tales full of mysteries and adventures and other serious things, too. Each night, they talked and talked until Robby could no longer keep his eyes open but still tried to listen until their voices became murmurs mixed with the crackle of the dying embers. He vaguely remembered being carried to bed, sometimes by his father and sometimes by Ullinseed.

  Robby woke suddenly from his near-dream, staring blankly at Ullinseed's outstretched hand. Robby grinned, too, and took the hand.

  "I usually do watch where I sleep," said the traveler, putting an arm around Robby and leading him inside, "and this lapse on my part will not soon be repeated on your porch!"

  "I'm sorry for the way I acted," Robby said seriously, "but we've had a certain number of strangers about, lately."

  "I probably would not have acted so calmly myself," Ullinseed laughed, "so don't be sorry. These are times to be careful in. You challenged me, and rightly so. Just as I hope you would do any stranger. Look at this," he waved his hand around as they entered. "Business appears to be just as prosperous, and perhaps more so!"

  Mr. Ribbon heard the commotion and the voices outside and was working his way from the back stockroom to the front when, turning a corner, they came into view. Mr. Ribbon froze, broke into a smile, and stretched out his arms. Robby watched the two men embrace, patting each other on the backs heartily and shaking hands.

  "It's good to see you again, Robigor!"