Edith Pattou - Fire Arrow

For a moment she froze, then resolutely made her way across the grisly carpet. As she approached the window she saw that it was heavily barred with iron. She tugged on one of the bars; it was unmoving, set deeply into the stone.

She made her way back to the door, spying rusty iron chains and manacles trailing from the walls. Shutting the door behind her, she had the fleeting thought that, except for luxurious trappings, there was little difference between this room and her golden prison cell.

Brie opened the second door on the landing, expecting it to be another dungeon. Instead she found a lush greenhouse with large, abundant green plants. The floor was covered with a thick layer of moss, and Brie crossed the spongy surface to the vine-choked wall. The air was rich and damp, and she started to sweat. She became aware of a musty, rotting smell. It reminded her of the stench of the cro-olachan vine, the blood-drinking plant she and Collun had once come across in their travels. She peered at the vines closely. They did not appear to be cro-olachan, but she took great care as she poked and pushed through them to see if there was a window. There was none.

And so Brie went through the rooms of the bell tower, one by one, each one stranger and ranker than the last. There was a room crawling with insects—black, brown, green, yellow, and orange. They covered the floor and walls, a moving buzzing mass. To look for a window, Brie had to brush them off the walls, her hand covered with her tunic. They glanced off her face and body, some flying frantically around her head.

Then she came to a room with honey dripping off its walls; and a room furred with spiderwebs, with one enormous spider hanging up in a corner. It seemed to see her when she opened the door and immediately scurried along the wall toward her. She slammed the door shut. The floor of one room was covered with small dead birds that she had to wade through, their little lifeless talons scratching against the stone floor. There was a room of shadow and fog, and a room lit by hundreds of ever-burning candles.

One room Brie could not enter, so oppressive was the evil that pulsed from inside. Strange whispering sounds emanated from within the room's yellow darkness. She was able to cast only the briefest of glances, then she pulled the door shut with a shaking hand. It felt as though the door resisted, as though someone on the other side pulled against her. Sweat stood out on her brow as she ran up the circular stairway to the next landing and the next door.

In the end she found only four windows, each one barred with thick bands of unmoving iron. They were shuttered on the outside as well, so she had been unable to see out.

She returned to the landing of the golden room. At first she had thought the circular stairway ended there, but then she noticed a narrow slit through which she found another stairway, this one a spiral also, but even narrower. She had to ascend sideways, holding the lantern over her head.

After a short time her head and shoulders emerged into a chill, open space. The belfry, she realized, staring up at a massive brooding bell that hung fifty feet above her. The bell was black—a hard dull black—its surface pitted and scored with antiquity. The belfry was wholly still, not a breath of air stirred in the oppressive space, yet there was a soughing, gibbering malevolence, like a living thing, that beat at Brie's skin and eardrums. It came from the bell, with its wide gaping mouth and the clapper hanging mute inside, a great evil teardrop.

Gazing up at the walls above, where the lantern light cast eerie shadows, Brie could see where there had once been louver openings to let out the sound of the bell tolling, but they had been mortared shut. A metal ladder rose along the stone wall to the top of the bell stock, and a thick length of hemp hung alongside the ladder. The thought of that hulking bell actually ringing filled Brie with an unreasoning terror.

More than anything she wanted to get away from the belfry, but, setting the lantern down on the top step of the stairwell, Brie inched over to the bottom of the ladder. She wasn't sure how sturdy the floor of the belfry was; it was roughly constructed of wood planking and loose stone. She hoisted herself onto the ladder. The noise that was no noise grew stronger; her eardrums ached and her skin felt as though things were crawling on it. She climbed the rungs, the metal cold on her hands. When she reached a place where the openings had been mortared, she scratched at the surface with her fingernails. But it; was as solid as the rock beside it; no bits of soft debris were loosened by her scratching.

Quickly Brie descended the ladder, grabbed the lantern, and slithered down the narrow stairwell as fast as she could. She walked into the golden room and sank down on gold velvet carpeting, rubbing her arms and face until the crawling feeling left her skin.

Brie bowed her head, closing her eyes. She had searched the bell tower from its foundation to the evil top of it. There was no way out.

SIXTEEN

The Bell

If only the fire arrow had not been lost to her. Brie could not fathom where it might be. She summoned a picture of the arrow in her mind. She remembered the oddly comforting sensation of it humming against her fingers, and for a moment she could almost feel it. Suddenly the picture changed subtly. She saw her quiver lying in a murky place and, next to it, her bow. Brie gave a start, opening her eyes. The picture faded. But her eyes felt hot and, as had happened before, she could not see clearly. She sat still, puzzled.

Then her stomach rumbled. Thinking back, Brie realized she had not eaten since the evening meal she shared with Hanna. She had lost track of time, but guessed that had been at least a day ago. She thought about the golden cupboard with its store of food, then shook her head imperceptibly. Perhaps it would indeed be better to die of hunger and thirst in this prison tower than to live as...

Her mind veered away from Balor. Instead she thought of Collun and a deep yearning took hold of her, so overpowering all else was obliterated. She conjured up an image of Collun, and, strangely, a faint humming vibrated under the skin of her fingers.

Collun sat by a campfire, his face illuminated by the orange glow of the flames. He stared into the fire and his face looked tired.

He looked so real, close even. Her humming fingers lifted as though to touch him. "Collun," Brie breathed.

Suddenly Collun looked up, startled.

Then the picture was gone and her vision blurred.

Sometime later, when she left the golden room, her vision was back to normal. Standing on the landing, she could feel the hulking weight of the bell above her, like a totem of doom, challenging her with its ancient evil.

The toll of a bell —a signal, to Hanna or Fara, though what they could do for her, she did not know. She again made her way sideways up the circular stairs. A throbbing, persistent mutter seemed to beat against her as she emerged into the belfry. "At your own peril," it seemed to say. "Pull on the rope and know desolation, despair." Its gaping mouth leered at Brie. She grasped the bottom of the ladder and hoisted herself up.

As she came even with the rope, the throbbing noise in the belfry felt almost like a scream. She put out a hand and grasped the thick hemp. It scratched against her palm, and rotted, ancient bits of it fell away. For a moment she feared the whole thing would disintegrate, but it did not.

She pulled.

The bell swayed, but only an inch or two. She pulled again, harder. It swayed again, farther, but not enough for the clapper to strike the sides.

Trying to lodge her backside into the rungs of the ladder, Brie reached out with her other hand so that both hands grasped the rope. She pulled. Still it wasn't enough. With a muttered curse, she pushed herself off the ladder and dropped down, holding fast to the rotting rope.