Coronach of the Bell (short story) by Christopher Stasheff

Author:Christopher Stasheff [Stasheff, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Stasheff Literary Enterprises
Published: 2014-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

In the hour before dawn, when all the world was still, the clan of Mannin shot trembling from their beds as the earth beneath them shook with thunder.

Rushing from their doors, they saw a great notch torn between the mountains.

"The ridge is gone," they whispered; and, "The wizard of Mannin is no more! Who shall aid us now?"

Then Manninglore stepped into the village, a pack of magics on his back, an iron beaker in the crook of his elbow, Demouach upon his twisted shoulder.

He paced through the village that day, gaze probing the folk of the clan, tagging each person and allotting it cate­gory, for Manninglore had studied Humanity once, long ago, had wrought through the gear-meshing strivings, the escapements of mores, to the tightly-coiled spring of the cravings. Then, when he knew why Man and Woman did what they did and when they would do it, he had given over the study as ephemeral, and therefore unworthy.

But now, as he measured the paths with his stride, his eyes sought through flesh and marrow to the souls within, and found them all shrunken, dwindled to gibbering, skeletal monkeys, atrophied. And Manninglore marveled that this dwindling had come to pass within his gaze, but without his notice.

They were dying, all about him, the folk of his clan, those in the prime of their lives. The elders still mumbled and moved with some sign of life, with jerkings and tics, and youths still walked, limbs laboring slowly, as though they forced their way through some dark and viscous fluid.

But the men and women in the fullness of their days sprawled in the doorways, muscles sodden, bones sagging. Here an old one gave his woman-grown daughter to drink; there a girl crooned her parents to their final slumber. Children there were none.

Yet kindness was here, and love, in the pitiful efforts of the old and young to ease the slow, sinking deaths of maturity.

Manninglore saw, and shame grew within him.

"O Spirit!" he cried to the Wind, "totem of Mannin! Hear the tale of a life come to naught. My cry has been only, 'For me!' for I labored only to say, 'I have built, I have crafted, I shall always endure in my works!' while here in the valley they have cried only, 'For thee! All for thee!' "

"It is true," chimed the spirit, "yet but half of the truth. They have cried, 'All for thee, my child, that you may someday be like to Manninglore!' Wizard, you have served them in your selfishness; you have given them a mark for their striving, and so have brought them out of greed, to giving."

"Yet how little to give!" cried the sage; but Demouach crooned on his shoulder.

So they came to the fields, the beaker, the hermit, and the batwing. There they looked upon the maize standing tall, in buff serried ranks, tasseled heads nodding to make the Wind whisper.

Manninglore scowled; words growled low in his throat. "There is corn in the field, there is grain in the bin, there is gruel in the pot.

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