Misery Bells
In the Kingdom of Not there is a city in a canyon, called by its inhabitants Misery. Sometimes they speak with irony when they say they live in Misery, and sometimes not. Colonists founded Misery as a mining-town, for once upon a time there was a fortune in metals in that canyon: lumps of nearly pure copper and tin, strewn like pebbles in the bed.
Today all the metal comes from mines that dig deep into the ground, and which must be drained using elaborate systems of pumps. The people of Misery know more than most about metalworking, and the bells of Misery are the finest in the kingdom. Local historians tell credulous tourists that angels and demons come to the Kingdom of Not, to purchase Misery bells, and that they pay with green-gold coins from deep abyssal mines or with pearls harvested from luminscent heavenly pools.
In truth the bells are renowned far and wide, for even the less-credulous know the tale of Izzle and the Bell, and therefore consider the bell’s peal a good protection against evil spirits. In Misery it is rare to find a window or a door without a bell hung to protect it. In much of the oldest section of town, even the sewer-grates and water-pipes are studded with small bells. On windy nights the tinkling of these smallest charms echoes through the tunnels and basements of Misery, keeping beggars and rats awake. Neither are common, in Misery.
For many years the largest bell in the Kingdom of Not was the Toll of Remembering, hung from a special casement in the Plaza of Memory, in the city’s center. Eight feet high and over thirty in diameter, the Toll of Remembering rings ceremonially on Past Crimes Day (the canyon-city’s principal holiday) only. Legend tells that during the great storms of the past, when glass needles fell from the sky, the wind was such that the Toll rung of its own accord. Some say that its ringing then protected Misery, and saved the city from the death by fire which consumed so many settlements. Thousands, tourists and residents alike, gather in the Plaza every Past Crimes Day. They hope the tolling of the great bell will pardon their past crimes, and protect them from divine, or demonic, retribution.
Oh! what a sight the Plaza is on Past Crimes Day! Lit with green glass torches and packed with revelers! The music of hundreds of thousands of bells fills the air, and collective body heat makes heavy clothing unnecessary on even the coldest Days.
Today the Toll of Remembering is but the largest bell in the canyon-city called Misery. Yommno, Exemplar of the walled citadel, commissioned a truly massive bell — fifteen feet high, according to the most plausible rumors — and the bellmakers of Misery, those paragons of Quality, completed its construction last winter. In keeping with the Exemplar’s orders, this massive and unnamed bell has not been rung once; the porters packed it with cotton batting and braced it with scaffolding during its long transit from Misery to the walled citadel. Now it hangs in the center of the citadel, above the Exemplar’s holy see, and those who know Yomno’s mind say that it will not ring until the world’s ending.