The Bell at Sealey Head

Twenty-two

Ysabo crouched on bare stone, staring at the bell.

It hung from nothing in the middle of the tiny room she and Ridley Dow had fallen into. The room had no door; it was a perfect cube, with a window in each wall, little more than gaps in the stones and open to the weather. One looked out over the sea, the others over the endless wood.

From the seaward side, she guessed, someone might watch the sun go down every evening, could ring the bell at exactly the moment the light vanished. If there had been a door to come and go by.

As they had tumbled into the room, the bell had rung. Ridley had fallen against it, the princess guessed. The sudden, loud, hollow clang was startling; it reverberated in the air like a word that should not have been spoken. It was an unlovely thing, its worn metal pocked, a jagged crack across it, the paint that had once gilded it bubbled and chipped from centuries of windblown rain, hot summer light simmering within the stones, the daily pound of the heavy clapper over years, decades, centuries.

“Where are we?” she had asked Ridley as they gathered themselves up. Even then, even before he had peeled himself off the floor, his eyes had been riveted on the bell.

“We’re in the book,” he said, and left her to contemplate the peculiar circumstances that made his answer perfectly comprehensible.

The next time she spoke, to wonder uneasily whether he might know how to get out of a doorless room, or, for that matter, a book, he didn’t answer. He didn’t seem to hear anything she said after that. He sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, staring up at the bell as though it spoke a secret, silent language only he could hear.

He looked spellbound.

I am trapped, she thought, in a stone cell with a man who can’t hear my voice, who seems to be conversing silently with a bell. Should I have let him unlock the tower door and gone up to feed the crows instead?

It was past midday now; the sun was beginning its leisurely arc toward the sea, though no light spilled yet through any of the windows. What had Maeve and Aveline and the knights thought when no one came to hold the third cup at the noon-hour ritual? She couldn’t imagine. The knights weren’t used to thinking; perhaps they just made do without her. Or had they, already armed and suspicious, scattered through the house to find her, raging among barking dogs, shadowed by the crows?

On the whole, she decided, thinking of their mindless, angry eyes, their sharp swords, she felt much safer in this doorless place that they could never find.

The bell began to vibrate silently. A thumbnail of gilt flecked off of it. Ridley closed his eyes.

That much happened, then nothing, except the bell shimmering in midair. Ysabo watched it for a while; then she turned her head and watched Ridley.

Something was happening between the man and the bell.

Ridley straightened, as though the bell had slowly pulled him away from the wall. His eyes never left it. The bell seemed to pulse, throwing a golden shadow around itself that faded, then grew bright again. Then faded. Then grew bright. Ysabo pushed closer to the wall, trying to make herself small, trying to watch both at once. The air itself seemed to vibrate, a tension in it that crawled over her skin and made her want to hide within the stones.

Ridley caught his breath. Ysabo stared at him. He cried a word suddenly, his face illumined by the glow of the bell as light poured out of it in every direction. The bell cracked completely, metal torn from metal in an arc from rim to dome. The twin pieces thundered to the floor and re-formed in a dizzying swirl of shape and color. Ysabo flung her arms over her eyes but still saw it, glowing like the imprint of the sun behind her eyelids. Ridley made another sound, a garbled exclamation; whatever it was, he had gotten his voice back. Ysabo lifted one arm, peered at him. He was still staring raptly, so she lifted her other arm, cupped her hands above her eyes. The brilliant blur was slowing, sorting itself into long, long hair, a smoky mix of gray and black, a tall, leanlimbed body covered in gray silk and black wool, extraordinary eyes of blue-green teal, a pale, lined, fine-boned face somewhere between Aveline and ageless.

She gazed down at Ridley as intently as he had stared at the bell, until he spoke the word again, and Ysabo realized it was her name.

“Hydria.”

Something snapped; the air sparked between them where a bond had broken.

The woman spoke, a boom like the sound of the sea and the bell together, and Ysabo covered her ears again.

“Where is he? I will tear his head from his shoulders and boil it for breakfast.” Her eyes loosed Ridley abruptly; he sagged back against the stones, drawing breath deeply, his face glistening with sweat. She looked at Ysabo. “Who are you?”

“Ysabo,” she answered, the only word, under the queen’s fierce gaze, that she remembered.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came with Ridley Dow.”

Queen Hydria moved suddenly, stepped forward to fold her long body down in front of Ysabo. “I know that face,” she breathed, tracing Ysabo’s jaw line with her forefinger. “It nearly broke my heart.” She turned her gaze to Ridley again. “How,” she asked with amazement, “did you find me?”

“It wasn’t easy. I heard that bell ringing across the centuries and followed the sound of it. I had no idea what it was until I saw the magic in it. I looked into it, and saw you.”

She closed her eyes, her face growing rigid, livid; Ysabo half expected the bell to sound again, Hydria’s voice for so many years, her only word.

“No wonder it cracked,” she whispered, and the queen opened her eyes, stared at Ysabo again.

“I felt such terrible sorrow, such loss, such fury, at that moment at the end of every day when the last light faded in the world. The bell was the sound of my heart, crying out to the world. Before Nemos Moore came, it was a joyous sound in my court. It summoned everyone to the evening feast, to music, laughter, companions. Before Nemos Moore came and broke our days into pieces, meaningless, joyless shards of tasks. Before he turned my knights into crows, before he replaced them with paper men from my wizard Blagdon’s book. Before he turned half my world into paintings from that book, so that we could see the world and long for it, but no doors led out of Aislinn House into it, only into the flat worlds of ink and paint—”

“Why?” Ridley whispered. “Why did he do that?”

“Because he wanted power over me, my realm, and I refused him. Because I saw what he was: a little man with great power, who would toy with lives just because he could. I invited him into my court out of courtesy and curiosity. He told me that he was a scholar of the road, traveling to learn what he could. I never thought to ask what road he had found that led him into the rich, secret heart of Aislinn House.”

“Your wizard. Blagdon. He made the book?”

She nodded. “He had great gifts himself, for magic, for painting and for poetry. All this Nemos Moore used—he trifled with those gifts, like a child tearing apart pages it doesn’t understand—to transform something bright and happy into a place of meaningless patterns, strictures, fears. A place without doors, without dreams. All because he knew he could never belong in my court. Blagdon was very old, almost as old as the house itself. He did what he could against Nemos Moore. But in the end, I was trapped within the bell. I don’t know what happened to Blagdon.”

Ridley had grown silent, in a way that Ysabo recognized; he was gazing into the queen’s eyes but not seeing her, seeing inward, backward. “I wonder . . .” he murmured finally and stopped, then began again. “That boat...”

“What boat?”

His eyes came alive again; a smile rose and sank beneath the surface of his face. “Can you get us out of here?”

“How?” she demanded. “There is no door. I have no idea where we are.”

“You had the power to speak to the world when you were spellbound,” he reminded her. “Nemos Moore is in your house again. If you want him, I’ll help you.”

“Oh, yes.” Ysabo saw the shimmering around the queen that had trembled around the bell. “I want him.”

She turned abruptly, walked into the stones. They tore as though they were paper. Ysabo heard Ridley’s breath shake. He pushed himself to his feet, held out his hand to her.

They stepped through stone into the wood beyond Aislinn House.

Hydria had already left a black rip between the trees, which were oddly silent and smelled of nothing. They followed quickly, stepped into a great hall full of painted knights drinking from cups held by three women. The tear that Hydria had left was through the sunlight falling into the open doors of the hall. The next rip in the paper world was through a flock of crows.

And then into shadow, walls of stone, dark water flowing silently through the underground cave. Ysabo could smell the water, the dusty, ancient air, feel the chill of a place that sunlight never found.

They were out of the book and in the boat. It was still moored by its chain and the stake hammered into stone. The lantern on its prow was lit. Nemos Moore stood within the light.

“Ah,” he said softly. “You found your way, Mr. Dow.” He nodded to Hydria. “My lady. Ladies. How does it feel to take a simple breath of air after so many years? Wonderful, I would think. Is it?”

He was no longer the elegant, clever, middle-aged man Ysabo had seen before. He was now young and lithe, with long hair and a genial expression not unlike Ridley’s: the traveling scholar, she guessed, whom Hydria would remember welcoming so innocently into her house.

She recognized him, and she didn’t waste time talking to him. She moved in the boat as unflinchingly as she had moved through the pages of the wizard’s book. With one kick she sent the lantern flying to strike and spatter oil all over Nemos Moore before it hit the stone and shattered.

Flames shot up his clothes. He shouted, cursing, and flung himself into the water. The intense, oblivious expression had appeared again on Ridley’s face. He didn’t hear Nemos Moore’s next shout, which sent rocks rattling down among them; he didn’t seem to see the danger Hydria put herself in, trying to push the sorcerer back under the water with her foot. He grabbed at her, cursing again, and she lost her balance, tumbled to the bottom of the boat, which rocked wildly and nearly tossed Ridley overboard.

Something was happening to the boat. It was softening, dwindling, changing shape. Ysabo, feeling it turn under her feet, gasped and grabbed the chain to keep them close to the shore. It came up lightly in her hands; she stared with horror at the empty end of it. The boat drifted toward the middle of the river, passing Nemos Moore, shoulder deep in water as he reached the shore. He pulled himself up on the stones and turned.

He said Ridley’s name. It came out in gusts of color, gouts of glittering shadow that fell over Ridley like rain. He stopped moving, looking vaguely surprised by something he didn’t expect. Nemos Moore said Hydria’s name. She, too, grew still beneath the rain of her name, though her desperate, furious face recognized the spell. Nemos Moore looked at Ysabo.

She moved before he said her name, whipping the chain across the water, sending it curling around his knees. She wrenched at it. Then the boat turned like a live thing under her feet, and flung her backward into the water.

When she surfaced again, coughing and clutching the motionless, floating bodies that had slid in with her, she saw a tall old man with hair like moss and skin like melted wax standing in the water. He held the wizard’s book open with his hands. His eyes were locked on Nemos Moore, who was back in the water, shouting something at the chain around his knees.

The old man slammed the book shut, and Nemos vanished.

He ran his hand over it, murmuring. A seal flowed over the closed pages, hiding them, binding the book together from cover to cover. Ridley and Hydria came to life abruptly, floundering until they caught their footing, their heads turning this way and that, searching for the missing Nemos Moore. They found the wizard instead.

“Blagdon!” Hydria exclaimed, her wet hands over her mouth. “You’re still alive!”

“My thanks to that young man,” he answered.

“Yes, mine, too,” she answered tightly. “He saved my life. But where’s the other one? Nemos Moore?”

The old man smiled, a sweet, oddly content expression for someone who had been chained in water for a very long time and still hadn’t found his way out.

“I closed the book on him.”

He declined with thanks and went off somewhere with the wizard instead.

They escorted Ysabo to her chambers, which seemed to be exactly where they had always been in a house whose bustlings were at once domestic and unfamiliar. As they passed through the great hall to the stairs, someone flung open the broad doors through which the knights rode at midday. But the knights seemed to be elsewhere; the hall, except for musicians and elderly courtiers playing chess, was oddly peaceful. Nothing came in the door but light and wind, the soughing of the trees, the surprising sounds, beyond the courtyard walls, of a blacksmith’s hammer, the bellow of some barnyard animal.

It was as though several different times had merged, like ripples in water crossing one another, changing shape, forming a new pattern. One of the ripples had to do with the wizard’s book; another with the spellbound house and those who had been born and lived and died within that dark time while the queen and the wizard had been imprisoned; a third had to do with Queen Hydria’s house as it had been, generous, rich, happy, before Nemos Moore had found his way into it. Nothing had been lost, Ysabo realized slowly and with wonder, except a thoroughly wicked sorcerer, who existed now only in the pages of a book.

The servants delivered her into the hands of her ladies, who took such delight in her return that they rendered her nearly speechless. They exclaimed over her wet clothes and seemed to think she had fallen into a stream while riding in the wood. Their smiling eyes suggested some romantic import to the mythical ride, part of which she must surely have enjoyed.

Ysabo found it easiest just to agree with everything they said.

A pair of them escorted her to Maeve’s chambers; as usual, Aveline was with her.

The ripples of time had flowed a bit differently through their memories. They welcomed Ysabo with relief; she was not sure how long she had been trapped in the bell chamber, but apparently long enough for them to worry.

“We haven’t seen you all day,” Aveline said. “No one could find you. Were you with Zondros?”

“Zondros.” Belatedly, she remembered a knight with ivory hair and black brows; she wondered if he still existed, or if he had turned back into a painting in Blagdon’s book. “Oh. Mostly I—ah—I was immersed in a book.”

They took it with remarkable calm, this shattering of ritual. “We missed you,” Aveline murmured, smoothing Ysabo’s drying hair. There was no sign in the room of the wedding dress; it must have gone the way of the paper knights, she realized with relief.

The door opened; a lady murmured, “Queen Hydria.”

Maeve and Aveline stared at one another. Maeve dropped her embroidery; they both rose hastily, and curtsied to the tall queen, whose gray and black hair swirled now into a braided pile on her head, whose exquisite green gown and blue mantle matched her teal eyes. She wore a crescent of gold in her hair, jewels on her fingers, in her shoes.

She smiled at them. They gazed at her silently, memories coming and going in their eyes. Was she a dream? Their faces wondered. Were they the dream? Whose story had they all been in?

Aveline spoke first, huskily. “My lady. You have been gone—No, we have—Where have we all been all this time? And how old have we gotten to be?”

“You remember,” Hydria said gently, with a sigh of relief. “Please. Sit with me. We can get to know one another.”

“Did we ever?” Maeve asked confusedly. “Or are you a story that Nemos Moore told us long ago?”

“Perhaps. I have been spellbound, like this house, for a very long time. Years past my counting. You both know Nemos Moore?”

“He came to visit us now and then,” Maeve answered. “Mostly when Aveline was small, and I was young. He took us out—I think he did—I remember roads, rain, adventures . . . Or was it only stories?”

“It may have been only stories,” Hydria said. “But his stories had a way of seeming very real. I think you are still in your own time. I am as old as I was when he bound me into the bell, but I came back into your time. Those who were spellbound with me, servants, courtiers, knights, remember me. Those, like you, who were born to the ritual and bound by it, know me as a name. A memory of Aislinn House. One of the tales that Nemos Moore found in Blagdon’s book and brought to life.”

“The ritual.” Aveline had picked up Maeve’s embroidery; she sat with it in her hand, absolutely still, looking back. “There was a ritual once. I remember it. Pieces of it. A long time ago. Wasn’t it?”

“Not worth remembering,” Hydria said with an edge in her voice. “My wizard Blagdon has made me a new bell,” she added, “with a beautiful sound. The other was weathered and cracked; it had a toll like all the sorrows in the world. This one speaks a bubble of gold. You will hear it this evening. I am giving a feast in honor of his work.”

“Blagdon,” Maeve murmured politely, looking as though she were struggling to remember. Her face brightened. “He wrote poetry, didn’t he? And painted with inks. Delicate scenes of Aislinn House when it was ancient. Nemos Moore—” She checked herself, seeming to feel a chill in the air. “Someone,” she amended vaguely, “showed me his book. Beautiful, it was.”

Later, after Hydria had gone, she looked helplessly at Aveline. “I must be getting old,” she said. “I can’t remember anymore who’s alive or dead.”

“We’ll find out at supper tonight,” Aveline assured her, and looked at Ysabo. “You will be there?”

“Yes, Aveline.”

“Good,” she sighed. “As long as I see you, I know where I am in this house. I still have all my memories of you.”

The knights came to supper as always. Their faces had changed, Ysabo thought. They smiled; they spoke to the women as well as to one another; they touched their wives. They weren’t mindlessly noisy, like a flock of crows, intent on only one another and their food, saying nothing that hadn’t been said a thousand times before, as though even their conversation had been ritual. One among them, Ysabo noticed, had long pale hair and black brows. He looked at her several times down the long table as though he knew her. His eyes were gray. Once he gave her a sweet, intense smile that astonished her.

Ridley Dow had not appeared for supper, nor had Blagdon. Ysabo suspected they were together somewhere, sharing their unusual knowledge and experiences. She hoped she would see him to thank him before he returned to the other Aislinn House. She found the queen’s eyes on her once. Hydria, holding her gaze, raised her cup and inclined her head.

“To Ysabo,” she said, without explaining why. Her court raised their cups and cheered without knowing exactly why and drank to Ysabo, who finally understood exactly why.