Night Bells

Night Bells

  A Primoris System Novel • A Tale from Niflheim: Book One

  By L.M. Sherwin

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  Copyright © 2012 L.M. Sherwin

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  This is a work of fiction derived from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real places, persons, or events is either coincidental or used fictitiously.

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  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Zachary Sherwin for being an unending source of love and support, to my parents for saving all my old stories, and to Leigh Anne Conduff for making us do our third grade writing project—that’s where the seed was planted.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The following letter was discovered in the ruins of New Kristiansand many centuries after the events surrounding the sons and daughters of the Maslyn family line had faded into memory…

  Dearest Louisa,

  The boy has been traumatized, to be sure, and I feel that destiny will not free him from this tale of treachery and woe. A great tragedy has occurred here, but I know in my old bones that fate will see him through to the end, though there may be storms along the way. It does my soul good to know that you have missed the fell deeds that passed over us in the night. Your good friends, Lord Maslyn and his dear wife, Lizbet, were both brutally killed—possibly at the hands of their own child, Fenris. The culprit, along with Olan, has disappeared and Soryn, poor Soryn, is left utterly alone and lies locked away for his own protection.

  I do hope that I will be of some use and help to him, even in my old age. This place is one of cruel and terrible destiny. A blessing it might have been that you passed on when you did. I miss you more than I can sometimes bear, but this cold, harsh place is often only a den of suffering. I take comfort in one of the psalms. “The Hope of the Faithful,” it is called. The hope of the faithful…yes, that is what I have, sweetest Louisa. Hope that one day, this boy will rise to meet his new beginning—whatever it may be. Hope that I will see you again after my light here on Niflheim burns out. Hope that all will be bright and good again for this broken family.

  I must blow out my candle now, beloved, and welcome the sounds of the snowy night. My eyes grow tired earlier these days. My joints ache with the frigid winds. My mind wanders across the paths in the wood behind the church. My body longs for sleep. I still place the dried wreathe of lavender on your pillow at night—the one we were able to weave that summer long ago—a symbol that you are ever in my heart, though your body has been gone these sixteen years. I kiss your memory each time the moons pass over me and sleep comes.

  Say a prayer for the boy, dearest Louisa, and for me that I might be of help to him. Tell our Lord that I desire only to serve Him. Watch over me in the night.

  All my love and devotion,

  Kimbli

  Chapter One

  In which the young master discovers a secret...

  Late in the month of Jol, 903 PAE (Post Ancient Earth)

  A red glow lazed about the room like an unwelcome guest, reluctant to leave. Odors from the distant kitchens meandered across the floor stones and ascended to his nostrils. He snorted. The scent of burnt flesh—even stag— had always sickened him. Bringing a gloved, bejeweled hand to his face, he covered his eyes. The red lights from the room’s two lanterns dulled his senses and lulled him into a hazy half-consciousness. Footsteps resounded on the stairs leading to his room. A scowl escaped his freshly licked lips.

  It was Jori, his manservant.

  “My Lord Maslyn,” Jori politely chimed when he arrived at the top of the staircase.

  The manservant was met with silence. Lord Maslyn continued to cover his face and feigned sleep.

  “Lord Maslyn,” Jori nudged the young noble’s shoulder.

  “What?” the boy asked, disinterested.

  “It’s almost Night Bells, sir,” Jori informed him.

  Lord Maslyn sighed and stretched. He hated Jori’s roundabout way of ushering him to bed almost as much as he hated the infernal Night Bells that the village church rang each night. Jori walked behind him, like a dog, over to the four-poster bed. Lord Maslyn rolled his eyes when the manservant promptly started to undress him. Jori deposited Lord Maslyn’s linen nightgown over his master’s head and put his day clothes into the wicker basket adjacent to the door. The servant girl would pick it up in the morning.

  Once the noble was properly tucked beneath the covers, he dismissed Jori and pretended, once again, to fall compliantly asleep as his manservant walked down the staircase. It was almost impossible for Lord Maslyn to hear the great door slam, for it lay far and away at the end of the long corridor that ran from his tower to the main castle. He didn’t bother to strain his hearing in order to make sure that Jori was truly gone. Lord Maslyn listened carefully for any telltale sounds of life around his room—his nightly custom. There used to be birds nesting in the rafters of his ceiling, but they were gone now. Even though it was the month of Jol—the dead of winter on Niflheim—it was colder than usual outside. No summer birds would survive the frigid cold of his lofty domain this time of year. They would have long since gone underground to their nesting caverns.

  Lord Maslyn’s window was tightly bolted and he never attempted to open it, not once in six long years. Still, sometimes, he pulled back the drapes and looked at the outside world to which he was denied access. In summer, he saw birds and other animals that lived in the forest behind his tower frolicking in the snow. The bars and bolts over the glass made the whole world look as though great black stripes ran through it. Often, at night, he would pretend that he knew of a sort of power that could move objects from far away. If he ever mastered that imaginary skill, he envisioned that he could open the latch on the outside and open the windows, even if only for a frigid breeze. He knew that he would never survive a climb or a fall from the height of his window; it just would have been nice to feel fresh wind on his face.

  Instead of wishing for magical powers, tonight he was content to lie in bed, awake. He opened one eye. Only silence and the red aura of the lanterns piqued his senses. Again, he detected the horrid smell of cooking meat. The kitchens were probably preparing venison for drying the next day. Or the servants could have been eating dinner together. He didn’t really know. He always ate by himself, or with Father Kimbli. It was not permitted for him to associate with the rest of the castle. The same people came every day, week, month, year. The same three people: Jori, Jordis the servant girl, and Father Kimbli. His entire social sphere consisted of those who were either assisting him with every aspect of his life or offering him counsel about it.

  Thoughts of such things irritated him. The covers were scratchy against his legs, and bile rose in his throat. He truly hated everything about his life in the tower. He hated the red lanterns, the putrid smells seeping from the air shafts, the stone steps, and, most of all, he hated the silence that permeated every single crack
in his broken existence. Never, in six long years, had he left that room. Being a twelve year old boy, he was sure his social development was being stunted from such isolation.

  The tower was like a stone cell. But, of course, he guessed that was exactly what it was meant to be. They threw him in the tower ages ago, though he couldn’t remember the exact night. He remembered his life before the tower, the fire that killed his family, and his life after, but he didn’t remember why those men had locked him in the tower room. Before, he had a father, mother, and two older brothers. After, he had only his loneliness. Why did they want to isolate him? He still remembered waking up after the fire with the disgusting scent of blood and burnt flesh in his nose and the memories of people he would never see again. The stone prison was grating on his nerves. The empty noble’s title he bore did him no good. It was all meaningless.

  After a while, his mind wandered and his thoughts settled on his weekly visit from Father Kimbli that happened the afternoon before. He didn’t mind the priest’s visits, if only because they dispersed some of the monotony of his increasingly dull waking moments. The priest had come up the stairs, like smoke, meandering about as shadows would before settling over one area. Kimbli was kind, but somewhat of a mother hen type. He always asked after Lord Maslyn’s health and seemed immensely interested in any little detail of the boy’s life and daily pursuits. He never asked Lord Maslyn about his past or about his family. The noble thought this a little odd, since he remembered the priest from the time before the tower, but he never brought it up.

  Yesterday, as usual, Father Kimbli descended onto the cushioned chair at the table and stared at the boy like a great, moth-eaten vulture. For all his kindness, the man looked to be nearing the further side of ninety. Not for the first time, Lord Maslyn wondered what had happened to the priest that caused his face to permanently freeze in a contented smile. Again, as usual, Father Kimbli opened with, “So, what have you been doing this week, Lord Maslyn?”

  A sigh.

  “Lord Maslyn, you must remember that you are free to tell me anything you wish about your life and your thoughts. I have watched over you since you were very young. Please, tell me about your week. It would please me to hear.”

  Rolling eyes.

  “I have infinite patience, my lord, and I assure you,” Kimbli said with a chuckle, “That I will continue to come every week, regardless if you feel like talking or not. I should think it would break up the monotony for you.”

  This was always how their visit went. Father Kimbli said everything and Lord Maslyn said nothing. In the early years, the boy had attempted to ask the priest about the tower and why he was there. He also tried asking about the incident, but Father Kimbli always changed the subject, a cloud descending on his wrinkled face. Years later, Lord Maslyn was at a loss as to what he was supposed to talk about—given that he did the same thing every week and nothing ever changed. He was never allowed to go anywhere or do anything that would entice sinning, excitement, or mischief. So, every meeting was an exhausting hour of sighs, nods, eye rolling, and staring off into blank space. Eventually, Father Kimbli exhaled heavily and, with great ceremony, stood. Ending as he always did, the priest said, “Until next week, my Lord Maslyn. I will pray for you. I hope you can find something to spark your interest in the coming days.”

  The memories of these events always troubled him. Though the priest’s visits were ultimately harmless, they still annoyed the young lord. What bothered him so much was the fact that the priest knew exactly what the boy wanted: something to interest him. He desired more than anything to leave the tower, to discover, to explore. The red lamps had finally dimmed to the ember-like shade of a dying fire. Lord Maslyn raised himself up. Even with the bolted window, heavy drapes, and coverlets, he shivered. It was utterly barbaric that he was not allowed to keep logs in his room. They never let him have anything that could be considered “dangerous”, though he did not know why. Perhaps it was because he was a boy and, traditionally (at least in the books he read), boys were rambunctious and unruly. He supposed that fire most certainly fell under those categories.

  Chilled, he still left the warmth of his bed, sliding into his slippers to walk towards the impotent fireplace situated in the center of his stone prison. Wind licked at the shaft of the chimney and he could feel a frozen draft pooling around the base of the hearth. A shudder racked his small frame. He tightly held his arms about him as if they could provide any warmth. He continued to sit in front of the windy alcove and felt utterly consumed by sadness. A cold facade remained on his face in front of the servants and Father Kimbli, but in his room, in the dark with the Night Bells ringing, he let himself become the scared young boy that he was.

  The cold air tugged at his nightshirt and his limbs grew stiff. As his mind started shutting down for sleep, he sensed another draft near the fireplace. From the bottom left corner, he felt a warmer sort of air spilling out of a crack. Now, he was intensely interested. Never in six years had anything interested him about this room. For the first time in eons, he felt the urge to do something. Smiling to himself, he thought he may indeed have found something to talk about with Father Kimbli. Lord Maslyn knelt down and pressed his small face to the crack, tried to smell and feel the air. It smelled fragrant—like flowers. It was a familiar scent...like someone he once knew, though he could not say whom. The air definitely came from below instead of from the chimney lip twenty feet up. Lord Maslyn craned his neck to look up the tunnel. He saw the snow swirl around outside the mouth of the chimney and he pressed his body closer to the warmer air that came up from the crack.

  As he scooted his body closer to the corner of the fireplace, he felt his spine come into contact with a sharp object. At first, he thought he had hit a rock or a piece of jagged brick in the hearth. When he turned and felt it with his fingers, he discerned a handle. Lord Maslyn went very still. “Just what is hidden in this fireplace?” he thought to himself. Hesitant, he lifted his frozen hand and felt of the metal latch. It was warm. He pulled on the handle. There was a small click and a hidden door swung inward, open. Lord Maslyn realized that some of the bricks in the fireplace were an illusion, merely plaster, fastened to a wooden door that posed as the left panel of the hearth.

  The air blew full-force out of the opening, and the boy reveled in the warmth of it. He looked behind him, over the table that blocked his view of the staircase. Listening, he only heard silence and he could see the dying flames in the red lanterns. Lord Maslyn smiled to himself. That night, for the first time in six years, something different would happen to him. Mustering any courage he had, he peered down through the small doorway. It was just big enough for his small body to crawl through. He felt sure that a grown adult would have had difficulty fitting through such a tiny opening. There was something comforting about that, as though the doorway were there just for him.

  After his head and shoulders squeezed inside, he let his eyes adjust to complete darkness. With the fingers of his right hand, he cautiously reached forward and felt the stone floor. Astonishingly, it was smooth and seemed as if it had been hewn by an artisan. Letting his fingers travel further along the floor, he felt a lump in his stomach when the floor suddenly stopped and only empty air remained. This was discouraging, but then a thought occurred to him...stairs. He backtracked to where the floor seemed to end and he did, indeed, find an edge that ran downwards until it hit another horizontal floor. Stairs.

  A delicious thrill curled in his chest and he slowly eased himself out of the opening, carefully shutting the false door. He made sure that he could use the hidden latch to reopen it at will. As much as he wanted to explore the entirety of the secret passage at once, he knew that it would be more prudent to wait and do so the following night, after he had had time to plan and secure some light for the tunnel. He made sure that nothing looked amiss in the fireplace or the hearth around it, and shuffled back to bed. Excitement kept him from sleep right away, so instead, he pulled back the curtains and stared out at th
e snow falling over the castle grounds. He could see the church, far away on the hill and footmen who cared for carriages down in the yard, nodding off at their posts. He closed the curtains and buried himself under the mountainous covers. The next night, he would explore the tunnel and perhaps find something wonderful nestled beneath his dark prison.