The Bell at Sealey Head

by McKillip, Patricia

  “So we can get into it that way,” Gwyneth said, looking entranced. “Rescue Ridley, and—” She paused. “Well. Somehow. I wish I knew more about magic.”

  Judd glanced at her. “How much would it really help him, you mean, for us all to go blundering in armed with candlesticks and pokers?”

  “The other Aislinn House can be frightening,” Emma said. “I’ve never crossed into that world in my life, and I’ve been opening doors since I was tiny. I was never certain I’d find my way back. And there are things that you’d never think to be afraid of in this world. A great flock of crows nearly did Mr. Dow in, the first time. He barely made it back through the door. If I hadn’t opened it, no telling, between the crows and the bad-tempered knights, what might have become of him.”

  “Not to mention the wicked sorcerer,” Gwyneth murmured. “We can slam the door against birds, but would that work against Nemos Moore?”

  Judd shifted restively, causing his chair to creak. “One way to find out,” he reminded them. “We’re not doing much to help, sitting here and scaring ourselves with what-ifs. From what you’ve said, Emma, an open door might actually help him. We could at least do that.”

  “It’s a place to start,” Miss Beryl agreed, rising quickly. “I have no idea what we can do against Nemos Moore, but I don’t see why we should make things easier for him by doing nothing.” She looked at Emma. “Which door?”

  “The stillroom pantry,” Emma answered promptly. “It worked before, and none of your guests would likely wander down there and see us.”

  None of the guests seemed to have bothered to get out of bed yet; no one was around at all, staff or visitor, to make a comment or ask a question as the little group followed Emma through the silent house. She didn’t think to wonder if anyone might be already waiting in the stillroom itself. Opening the door, she realized that of course she should have known.

  “Hesper!” Miss Beryl exclaimed, as the flighty-haired, barefoot woman slid off the table to greet them.

  For once she had no smile for Emma, only a deepening of the worry in her eyes as she looked at her daughter.

  “I guessed that this is where you might come.” She cast a glance askew at Miranda Beryl, acknowledged her uncertainly, “Miss Beryl.”

  “We all heard the bell ring at the wrong time of day,” Miss Beryl explained, her eyes going to the closed pantry door.

  “Even Lady Eglantyne noticed,” Emma told her mother, who was still staring at Miranda Beryl.

  “Did she? I’ve been wondering lately how much she knew. If that’s why she is waiting.”

  “Waiting?” Miss Beryl queried, taking her eyes off the door.

  “For the end of the story,” Hesper explained. “I wondered if maybe she made a friend in the other Aislinn House, like Emma did, and she wants to see things put right before she dies.”

  “That could be part of it,” Miss Beryl mused, pacing now, back and forth in front of the pantry door. “I know she worries about me and Ridley.”

  “Mr. Dow? And you?” The missing smile illumined her face; she exclaimed, “Well, that explains that, doesn’t it, now?” Miranda Beryl looked at her without answering, except for the faint flush on her face, the wry smile. “That’s why you sent me over to the inn so quickly to help him. And what now? Is your Mr. Dow in trouble again?”

  “We thought we’d have Emma open a door and see,” Judd explained.

  “Good idea. Just seeing, that part, I mean.”

  “Well—”

  “Of course you’d all have the good sense not to cross a threshold laid down by sorcery. Or rush into a spellbound world without a word to defend yourselves with.”

  “Of course we’d never do that,” Judd said adamantly. “I mean, unless, of course, circumstances require.”

  “Are you going, too?” Gwyneth asked her shrewdly.

  “I took a very strong dislike to Mr. Pilchard last night,” Hesper answered roundly, “misusing good, green, living treasures like that. When I heard the bell ring, I put this and that together and wound up here, waiting for Emma. Let’s see what you can do, girl.”

  Emma stepped forward, opened the stillroom pantry door.

  A solid wall of stone blocked it from threshold to lintel: a message from the other Aislinn House.

  “Keep Out,” Miranda Beryl whispered. She moved abruptly, tried it with her boot: a fierce shove that in another world might have shifted a lesser stone.

  Nothing budged. She turned finally, wordlessly, went to sit on the long wooden table, gazing at the door. One by one, they ranged themselves beside her and waited.

  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.