Frank Tuttle - The Broken Bell

“Where should we go?”

I watched people fight to get through the doors.

Where should we go, indeed?

The Father shouted. Guards pushed and shoved. Half the grooms took Brides in hand and fled as well, leaving flowers and veils and top hats trampled in a messy wake.

When the ruckus was over, there were maybe thirty of us left, including Tamar, Carris, a half a dozen would-be wed couples, and a bevy of white-knuckled parents.

The Father ordered the doors closed and locked. Darla looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“The doors just closed. You are aware of that?”

“I am.”

“We’re still on this side of them.”

“We are.”

“What’s going on? Was that not the only villain in the crowd? What are you up too?”

“You’ll see. Just play along. We’re not done here yet.”

She bit her lip but nodded.

The other grooms had stepped from behind the Curtain when the ruckus started. Each stood beside their brides with expressions that ranged from the terrified to the determined.

Carris and Tamar were among the determined. Mr. Tibbles popped his head out of his lace-trimmed basket and gave me a murderous wedding day growl.

“Well,” said the Father as the soles of Japeth Stricken’s shoes vanished beneath a tablecloth. “This has been a most unusual ceremony. Take that as an omen, if you wish. Life is made of the unexpected. Punctuated with the tragic. Sometimes fearful. Sometimes dangerous. But despite these things, you few who have remained-despite these things, you have chosen to remain together, and consecrate your vows. I tell you plain, young men, young women. Yours shall be blessed unions, for you have already demonstrated your commitment to them in the face of grave peril.”

The darkness above blotted out half the window and moved with no hint of slowing.

The Father squinted up toward it and gestured at it.

“That is fear,” he said. The shadow crept. “That is what we all face, now and again. But look not above, dear ones. Look to each other. There, find love. And love, I tell you true, is always greater than fear.”

Darla and I looked at each other.

Even through her veil, I could see her eyes. I could see she was crying, though I didn’t know why.

“Lift the veil,” said the Father. “Gaze into the eyes of she who will be your wife.”

I lifted it. Tears ran down her cheeks. I smiled and brushed them away.

“Do you mean it?” she managed to say.

“Speak your vows, and know that the whole of Heaven hears them,” said the Father.

“I will be your shield,” I said. My voice shook, so I repeated the words. “I will be your shield.”

Her eyes went wide.

“I will be.” She stopped, looked at me. “Are you sure?”

The darkness above swallowed the sky.

“Never more sure about anything.”

“I will be your lamp,” she said.

“Present the rings,” said the Father.

I fumbled that bit, first handing her a round of ammunition for the hand cannon, but finally came up with a box, and then a ring.

Her hand shook as I placed it on her finger. Hell, my hand shook as I placed it on her finger.

“Do you each vow, before Earth and Heaven, before Church and Host, that you will be Husband and Wife?”

“I do,” we said as one.

The Bell began to sound. It rang out a dozen times, good and loud and clear, though the noonday was dark as night.

There was something else, sounding with the Bell.

Something like thunder, and yet not thunder.

Something I’d heard before.

Flashes began to light the sky beyond the sooty glass, on the tenth peal of the bell. Flashes followed by not-quite thunder.

I held Darla close, on the tenth peal.

On the final peal we kissed.

The sky flashed and thundered and flashed.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” said Father Wickens. “Blessings of the Hosts upon you, I suggest we retire to the catacombs with haste, amen.”

Something came falling down on the glass, peppering it with small thuds and pings. I broke off our kiss and took my wife’s hand and we made for the dubious safety of the alcove behind the Curtain.

Tamar and Carris followed, as did half a dozen other assorted souls.

The ancient glass tinkled and popped. The sky beyond shook with thunder’s strange cousin.

Darla cried in my arms, but smiled despite crying.

“I didn’t think you’d do it,” she said. “Husband.”

“Should have married you years ago. I hope you’ll forgive my tardiness.”

She hugged me, and I needed no answer more than that.

The stained glass shattered from end to end and side to side. Angels and saints alike broke and tumbled and fell.

The sky beyond it boiled. Strange lights played there.

Something exploded, far above, and again, and again, and again.

The Father prophesied we’d enjoy a marriage that lasted all our lives, Darla and I.

That’s the thing about prophecy. Even when it’s entirely correct, it can still bite you in the ass.

The broken remnants of the window struck the floor with the sound of the earth breaking, showering us all with glass. No one was injured, though Mr. Tibbles was enraged beyond reason by the noise of it all.

Father Wickens shouted and bade the guards to open the doors. They did so, and the Father blessed us once again.

“Go in peace,” he concluded. “Heaven help us.”

Shattered saints and broken Angels crunched beneath our feet. Hand in hand, we left the Chamber. I didn’t follow Father Wickens toward the catacombs. I didn’t see the point.

Darla smiled at me. Flashes lit the windows beside us. Strange grumblings rattled doors, and echoed down the long cold halls.

“We might as well have a look outside, don’t you think?”

“I do indeed, husband,” she said as we passed under the last threshold.

“Then we shall, wife,” I replied. I opened the last door for her, as a gentleman should, and we stepped through it.

The skies lit up, and we watched the glow together.

And that was how we spent our wedding day.

Oh, there’s more, of course. We stole another horse, for instance. The new Mrs. Markhat clubbed a bridge clown unconscious with his own duck-headed walking stick. We got as far as the Brown before I realized the lights in the sky and the infant thunder weren’t cannon fire at all.

We reached the Brown River Bridge just as the Regency hove into view, firing her fireworks from every deck.

Evis still claims he intended the fireworks to be, and I’m quoting him here, a “…triumphant, regal celebration of Rannit’s victory over the forces of the North.”

Instead, he panicked the entire city, incited my new wife to horse-thievery and violence toward hapless clowns, and nearly did as much property damage as the invaders themselves had in mind.

But, as Evis is quick to point out, his fireworks display also sent people scurrying for shelter. And since the storm that followed practically on the Regency’s wheel was a sorcerer storm designed to kill, he might have a point about having saved thousands of lives.

The storm was the worst ever seen, even among the oldsters who swear everything that happened before the War was bigger, badder and meaner than anything born since. Whirlwinds rolled off the river, winding down streets with aim and clear purpose. Hailstones the size of hogsheads bashed roofs and left wagons smashed to splinters. Lightning fell and fell and fell, leaving fires and ruin in its wake, even as the whirlwinds raged.

The Sorcerer’s Storm, it’s being called. And so it was. Sent ahead to soften up Rannit’s defenses, and even though Evis left the barge fleet bottlenecked and impotent after blowing the pass, the storm had raced after the Regency , even as Evis pushed the churning vessel as hard as he dared.