The Bellringer

by William Timothy Murray

  "Aha!" he cried. "A cave or some little porch set into this wall would do nicely right about now!" He quickly pulled away some of the limbs and branches. "Especially if it is not presently occupied," he added, glad that the vines he blindly tore away were not thorny.

  It was not a cave, but was some other kind of opening about twice his own height and almost as wide. When the lightning flashed, he could see only a few feet into it, but he made out the distinct lines of broad steps leading upward into even deeper darkness. Cautiously, he picked his way through the remaining debris, and for the first time in hours was out of the rain.

  He plunged onto the interior steps and sprawled out, exhausted. After a moment, he began taking stock of things. It seemed warmer in here, not as dank as one might have imagined such a place, but he hardly had a mind to think on it. Soon it would be dark in earnest, and this seemed as good a place as any to wait out the rain. But the storm only seemed to increase its fury, and the crashing thunder rang inside the tunnel like kettle drums as the wind tore into the place, sending sheets of rain and leaves along with a few branches flying inside, driving Robby up a few more steps. Robby thought of his parents, and he regretted not turning back at the first sign of rain. If he had done so, he would nearly be home by now. He was angry at himself at how sick with worry they must be, and he was sorely tempted to leave at that very moment, and he stood up as if to do so. Suddenly, something came to him, like a voice, almost. "Be safe," he could hear his father say. The thought calmed Robby, and he resolved not to compound the poor decision he had made earlier with another one now.

  So, he sat back down. His stomach growled, and he fished around in his bag for some victuals, and his hand passed over his lamp. He pulled it out and examined it in the nearly continuous flashing light. Folding it together, he saw that the glass was still intact, which was something of a miracle given the beating his shoulder bag and all its contents had taken. The parcel was still there, too, and the rest of his meager gear. The bread was a soggy mess, and the cheese a bit mushy, but he was happy to eat, and soon it was all gone. Feeling a bit warmer than before and better for the food, he decided it was time to explore this hole, and he got out the little tin of firesticks that his father had given him.

  "I'd feel better for sure if I still had that knife, too," he said to himself as he opened the tin. Robby proceeded carefully. The vial was sealed with wax over a cork and held six small splinters of oilwood; the tip of each had been dipped into an alchemy paste and allowed to dry. The dried paste formed a hard tip that would, when struck just right, bubble and boil and emit a sulfurous odor. If luck was with you, the tip of the splinter would catch on fire. One had to be very careful with them, he knew. Not only could they seriously burn you, they were also unreliable, especially in the wind or when wet, and they were very expensive—this little tin was the price of a good pair of boots. Mr. Ribbon called them more of a novelty than anything else, but held that even impractical things sometimes had their uses. By now Robby's hands were fairly dry, but it was still windy in the hole, and moist, so he moved up a few more steps with his lamp and the tin of firesticks and crouched over them. He undid the cork on the vial, trying not to let the water still dripping from his head touch them, removed one splinter, and carefully recorked the vial. He opened the small lamp's door and tightened the candle and put it down on a stair step. Finally, he held the tin containing the firesticks so that the bottom of the lid was exposed, and he deftly scratched the firestick against it. A glint of red light appeared on the splinter and brightened as it boiled, sending tiny streams of smoking, red drops of fire crackling out from it. It faded. Just as Robby's heart sank, the wooden tip burst into bright flame with a piff! Elated, Robby quickly lit the candle and blew out the splinter. Making sure it was out by squeezing it between his fingers, he put the piece of wood back into the tin and slipped the tin back into his bag. He picked up his lamp, closed its door, and held it up to direct the light around him.

  The room he was in was only a landing at the opening of a stairway passage, its walls and arched ceiling laid in smooth granite. As he reached out to touch the wall, he noticed for the first time the many cuts and scratches on his arms and hands that, washed by the rain, now bled profusely. Looking himself over, he realized he was covered with gashes and cuts, and his clothes were a ragged mess, blotted all over with red. He was in pain, for the many wounds stung, his muscles throbbed, and his bones ached. Yet he considered himself lucky to have escaped the wolves and to have found a place like this to wait out the storm. Wiping some of the blood from his arms and hands, he continued to examine his surroundings.

  The staircase, broad enough for four men abreast, curved gently upward and out of sight around a bend and into the darkness above. Everywhere was grime and spider webs, and in the corner a startled chipmunk chirped and disappeared into a tiny crevice. Robby could see by the wear on the stone that the steps had once been well used. Here and there water trickled down the side of the walls near the opening, but farther in and upward they were dry, and no water ran down the stairs from above. He closed and secured the flap on his shoulder bag and slowly ascended the stairs, silently counting his steps, thinking to gain some clue to how high the stairs went. He soon realized the calculation would be beyond him, and, anyway, what did it matter? There was no air movement, and he was sure the way must be blocked up ahead. The rusty remains of iron braziers were set into the wall at regular intervals, and, as he climbed, the moist grime was gradually replaced by dry dust. By now, the crash of the storm was somewhat distant and hollow-sounding from below. After a little more climbing, the stairs ended onto a landing, and he stood before a large door of worm-eaten oak nearly a hand in thickness, studded and shod with once-strong iron, now rusted and flaking away with age. He pushed on it, and, to his surprise, it cracked and groaned and opened about a foot before its rusted hinges gave and the door sagged and jammed on the floor as a brief, cool feather of air touched his face. Squeezing through the opening, he discovered a large room, and as he swung his light around, he caught his breath and flinched at the shape of a man standing near the wall. Although there was nothing to fear from the statue, his heart still pounded as he continued to peer around.

  It was a large round chamber, and his feeble light did not reach to the other side or to the ceiling. By working his lamp up and down, he saw the shape of the room and many colors. Immediately beside the doorway sat several large wide-mouthed ceramic jars, sealed with stone stoppers and putty. Behind them in an iron rack were old wooden torches, their wicks long rotted away and the shafts so brittle that when Robby touched one, it fell into dust. Realizing what they were for, Robby put down his lamp and broke open the nearest jar. Just as he thought, the pungent aroma of stale, pitchy oil wafted out as soon as he opened it. An idea came to him, and, taking hold of the oak door, he pulled away many splinters as long as his arm. Ripping some strips of cloth from his already ragged cloak, he bound the sticks together tightly and plunged the end of the bundle into the jar. He lifted the makeshift torch out and let it drip before carefully lighting it with his lamp. The brand blazed to life with bright, orange-yellow light. As Robby gently swung the torch around, he gasped again and took a step backward.

  The round walls were covered in murals, six in all, three on two sides of the great room and each of them separated by the column base of one of the six crossing arches that ran up and joined far overhead on the white-tiled ceiling. The arches were painted in gold, and into the columns were carved life-sized figures of men and women, some mighty warriors in mail, some with crowns or circlets of gold upon their heads, and some holding scepters, all standing erect and tall but with their heads bowed upon their chests, as if resting or in prayer. In the center of the room was a marble banister bordering a round dais. There, suspended from the center of the joined arches by a chain of ornately worked iron, each ring as large as Robby's hands, hung a vast bell, nearly a third as wide as the room itself, cast in black iron, set with silver
runes, and adorned with green enameled ivy from which bloomed golden flowers. Robby bent to pass under the banister and ran his hand along the cool rim of the bell, wiping away some of the dust that lay upon it. Its bottom rim hung at his knees, and the top dome of it was far over his head as he passed around it looking at the strange designs, much like those upon the pillars of Oldgate. Striking it with his fist, it made not a sound nor did it move, but Robby thought he heard a noise circle the room like a soft and sudden inhalation of air, and the flame from his torch flickered in an unfelt breeze. He looked around, startled at the whisper, and the hair on the back of his neck tingled. The thin cobwebs that draped the room stirred ever-so-slightly, giving the figures an illusion of movement and raising gooseflesh on Robby's arms. A distant rumble reminded him of the storm outside and the wind that must be howling up the staircase tunnel.

  Robby turned his attention to the rest of the strange room, determined to explore and understand as much as he could. The murals depicted many different kinds of scenes: One was of a fearsome battle, with antler-helmeted combatants and silver-helmed archers amid a great slaughter of men and beasts and other strange and frightful creatures who walked upright, but they were not men. Another mural showed a great fleet of ships plying the blue-green seas under billowy white sails, landing upon a green-hilled shore. One mural revealed a blue-towered city of green and gold set against dark forested mountains, and another portrayed woodland gardens thick with blossoms of every color and description awash with springs of flowing water in slanted beams of sunlight piercing a green forest canopy. He passed from one mural to the next, studying the faces of those depicted and the device upon their shields, sails, and banners—a pale-blue star entwined with green ivy with gold flowers on a field of white. And around each mural, above and below, were more lines of the ancient writing, their curved shapes meticulously carved into the stone. On the far side of the room from where Robby had entered was a wider and higher doorway, and the figures on either side were of a finely robed man and woman, he with a golden, ivy-encrusted helmet, and she with a silver circlet. Each held up one hand, as in a gesture asking someone to wait. The man gripped a sword, its tip resting at his feet, and the woman held a scepter. Like all of the other statues in the room, their heads were bowed. He stopped underneath the lady, put his hand on the pedestal, and leaned in to see her face. Robby was surprised at the detail in the carving that showed the eyelashes of her closed eyes. He thought her face familiar, though he could not say why. Beneath her ivied crown flowed coal-black hair that curved down around her bowed head and draped over her shoulders and across her back. Her face was pale, yet so delicately painted that he could see a faint blush upon her cheeks, as if embarrassed by his gaze. Seemingly, not a speck of paint had ever flecked away, her lips still as rosy-red as when the statue was made, and the more he looked, the more he thought he saw a slight smile upon them. And for the second time in a single day, he remembered the strangers, the gentlewomen that came to him when he was sick as a child, and he thought he saw their faces somehow reflected in that of this eerie statue. A little melody, melancholy and delicate, now came back to him as he remembered the mysterious song they had sung to him, sweet and low, as they bent over his fevered body, touching their hands upon his brow.

  Between the two statues opened a high arched door to another room, smaller and rectangular, but of equal height. Robby's torch revealed that its walls were unadorned, except by the same white tile that covered the ceiling of the bell room. Its chief feature was a great portal, fitted with a massive iron door guarded on either side by fierce-looking stone warriors, each standing from the floor nearly to the ceiling, one brandishing a sword held with both hands high to one side, the other wielding in like manner a great war hammer. Unpainted they were, and coarsely carved, their eyes as blank as their expressionless faces. Between the two, the iron door stood, solid with no bands or rivets, smooth and without hinge, lock, or handle, a solid wall of metal completely sealing the portal, with not even a crack between it and the stone into which it was set. Robby stared up at it and then at the two towering guards that straddled it, and saw over the door, carved on the lintel, an inscription in the same familiar but indecipherable writing as upon Oldgate. He remembered his order book. Placing the torch into a brazier on the wall, he took out the small, leather-bound pad of paper and copied the inscription as best as he could. He might someday learn this script, he thought, or perhaps come back here and decipher it along with the other runes he had seen. As he copied, the light from his torch grew dimmer, and he hurriedly finished the job, then returned to the oil jars.

  As he worked to make another torch, he could faintly hear the noise of the storm thudding through the staircase nearby. Thinking he had best check on his exit, he gathered his things and started down. The air became decidedly cold as he descended, and when he came to the bottom, the gusty wind through the door nearly blew out his now-feeble torch.

  "I'd better have a look around," he said, thrusting the torch into a safe nook. Satisfied that it would not immediately blow out, he pulled his hood over his head and ducked through the brush covering the doorway and out onto the landing. It was still raining, but the noise of the stream was as loud as the storm. He walked to the edge and saw in the lightning flashes that it had swollen considerably by at least three or four feet. Clearly, it would be impossible to ford the swift and violent currents now crashing through the ravine, fed from all sides by countless rivulets.

  "Well," he sighed, "there's no getting back that way."

  Turning toward the bridge, he looked again for some way to it, but the wall was as sheer and smooth as before, with no step or handhold anywhere that he could see. It occurred to him that perhaps the way he had come, the ledge walkway, led to another pass or path that went farther upward against the side of Haven Hill, a way that he had perhaps missed earlier. After all, he reasoned, he had not been looking very carefully before, being in something of a panic. He resolved to go that way as soon as there was light. Meanwhile he could sleep dry and relatively warm on the inside of the hill. There was no more food left, but surely enough water.

  After being inside, it actually felt good to Robby to stand outside in the open, even in the driving rain, and so he was reluctant to go back in. To him this place was fearful, though strangely fascinating, and almost peaceful.

  "But it has the peace of a graveyard," he blurted out, glancing back at the light flickering behind the branches and vines from the obscured doorway. He turned and looked at the stream again, and realized that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he could make out the gushing water even without the lightning flashes, as if some strange glow filled the sky above and filtered downward with the rain through the trees overhead. It seemed that the water was even closer to him than before. Shaking himself, he gasped at the realization that the water was indeed rising very quickly, and, unless he was mistaken, it had nearly doubled in height just since only a little while ago. Every stream and brook, swollen into a flood, was draining into the ravine, it seemed. And, in addition to the roar of thunder and the racing water, he heard the crashing of trees as they were swept into the flood.

  "Not good!" he said. "Not good at all!"

  He sprang back into the tunnel, grabbed his bag, leaving the torch behind, got back out onto the landing, and started down the steps to the walkway along the ledge. If he could find another way around, and up, he might save himself. Otherwise, he faced being trapped in the interior of the fortress if the waters continued to rise. And he knew full well from living beside one that rivers always crested after the heaviest rains had passed. He bounded down the few steps and up onto the ledge and rounded the corner, slipping as he turned, nearly flinging his shoulder bag away as he regained footing, and, at the same time, surprising a scraggly wolf.

  "Whoa!" Robby cried, scrambling back. The wolf growled and snapped at him, retreating a few feet as several more crowded up behind, all snarling. Robby raced up the steps, onto the landin
g, and into the tunnel, snatching up the dying torch. The wolves were already scratching at the limbs, and one had his head halfway in when Robby thrust the torch into his face so hard that it nearly extinguished in the wet fur. The wolf yelped and backed out, but others scrambled to get past him and into the entrance. Robby flew up the staircase, now guarding the end of the torch with one hand like a candle, so afraid he was that it would go out. At last, huffing and panting, he made it to the upper landing and into the bell room.

  "Trapped!" he cried, unable to close the door. "Trapped!"

  He set to work, and quickly pulled more of the timber from the door until he had a large, thick stick. He hesitated for a moment, hefting it in his hand. No, he decided, it was too rotten to use as a weapon, so he worked feverishly to rip more fabric from his cloak while the other torch slowly faded. He could hear the noise of the animals on the staircase as he finished tying off the makeshift wick and thrust it into the pot. He gently picked up the dying ember, and, pulling the new torch out of the oil pot, he touched it to the old one. The new torch exploded into flames, dripping with fire as Robby moved through the door. Out on the staircase, he could hear them coming and thought the best plan was to take the offensive, to drive them out and clear a path through them to the ledge. Soon, he feared, the water would seal them all inside together.

  Robby could not know the extent of the wolf pack, which was in fact several rival packs driven together by the rising floodwaters and now converging on the same place for lack of anywhere else to go. As Robby strode down the stairs, he thought he had only four or five to confront. However, more than sixty of the beasts were clawing and biting at each other to make the landing, some falling off the ledge or pushed off by other wolves. Many of them were swept away by the rushing waters before they could make the landing or else their numbers would have been many times greater. So it was that the rising waters threatened all alike as Robby descended the stairs. As he rounded the last bend, he was assaulted by a cacophony of howls and whines and barks and snarls as the beasts pushed themselves into the tunnel and up the stairs. Robby's sudden reappearance startled them and caused those nearest to him to rush back into the doorway, setting off another vicious fight with those behind still trying to enter. Robby instantly realized the situation and fled back upstairs, knowing he had no chance of pushing through such a deadly mob.