Godslayer

FIFTEEN

The Gulnagel were in high spirits, and Speros’ lifted accordingly. He was grateful for the assignment, grateful for the show of trust on General Tanaros’ part. And truth be told, he was grateful to be away from Darkhaven and the presence of the Lady Cerelinde. It made him feel at once awestruck and insignificant, vile and ashamed, and between the General’s fierce glare and Ushahin Dreamspinner’s insinuations, it was altogether too unnerving.

This, now; this was more the thing. The camaraderie of the Fjel and a purpose to achieve. A warrior’s purpose, serving Darkhaven’s needs. He’d had only a small glimpse of the tunnels underlying Urulat when they’d traveled through the Ways. The Vesdarlig Passage was bigger than he could have imagined; wide enough for two Fjel to run abreast, tall enough for Speros to ride his tall grey horse.

Ghost, he had named her, because of her coloring. She moved like one, smooth and gliding. After his first mount had been lost in the Ways, Speros had thought he might never be given another such to ride, but the General had let him keep Ghost for his own. She bore him willingly, though Speros was uncertain whether she liked him. She had a trick of gazing at him out of the corner of one limpid eye as if wondering how he would taste, and her teeth were unnaturally sharp.

That was all right. He didn’t know whether he liked her. He was, however, quite certain that he loved her.

They moved swiftly, the Gulnagel at their steady lope, with one pair scouting ahead and Ghost keeping pace with the others at a swift canter. Streaking torchlight painted the walls with a shifting fresco of light and shadow, and it felt strange and exciting, a little like the unforgettable ride through the Midlands when Ushahin Dreamspinner had led them along the paths between waking and dreaming.

How odd it was to think that the plains of Curonan were above them. In another day, Haomane’s Allies might be riding over their heads and never even know it.

If there had been more time, Speros mused, perhaps it would have been better to use the tunnels rather than block them. How long would it take to move the army in a narrow column? He calculated in his head, trying to estimate how large an opening it would require to allow them egress, how far away it would have to be to enable them to assemble unseen, yet close the distance and fall upon the enemy before they could rally.

A sound from the darkness ahead broke his reverie. For an instant, it sounded like a hound baying, and Speros was confused, remembering a dusty road and a small farmstead, trying to steal horses with the General.

But no, there were Ghost’s tireless muscles surging beneath him, and there was one of the Fjel grinning upward, eyes reflecting torchlight, and the sound was deep, far too deep and resonant to issue from any hound’s throat. It was the hunting-cry of the Gulnagel Fjel.

“Quarry, boss!”

Speros whooped aloud in triumph, setting his heels to Ghost’s flanks. She surged forward, and the Gulnagel quickened their pace. They burst down the tunnel like a wave, prepared to sweep away everything before them.

“There, boss!” A taloned finger, pointing down a side tunnel. Speros wrenched Ghost’s head, and she sank onto her haunches like a cat, skidding and turning, her iron-shod hooves sparking against the stones while the Gulnagel bounded ahead.

He followed them, their torches bobbing like fireflies, while the tunnel grew steadily narrower. Here and there it branched, then branched again, doubling back toward Darkhaven. The air grew hot and close. The feeling of triumph gave way to unease. As the walls closed in upon them and the ceiling lowered, he slowed Ghost to a trot, then a walk, slower and slower, until the walls of the tunnel were brushing his knees.

When he could ride no farther, Speros dismounted and felt along the wall until he found a crevice into which he could jam Ghost’s reins. He continued on foot, stumbling over the tunnel’s floor. Unlike the main passage, worn smooth over centuries, it was rocky and uneven. Sweat beaded on his brow, and he wondered why he had bothered to wear full armor in pursuit of a pair of Charred Folk.

Ahead, the torches swarmed and separated, growing more distant. The sound of baying had ceased. It was hard to breathe, and harder to see. Speros fought back a spasm of panic. How many branchings had he taken? He hadn’t kept track. If the Gulnagel left him, he wasn’t sure he could find his way back.

“Hold up, lads!” he shouted.

To his relief, a pair of torches lingered unmoving. He made his way down the tunnel, forced to walk bent and doubled under the sloping ceiling. The Gulnagel were crouching, resting their weight on the knuckles of one hand, torches held awkward in the other. As Speros arrived, other Fjel were returning from farther tunnels, some nearly crawling. The narrow space was crammed with flesh and hide, rife with the acrid tang of smoke, the musty odor of Fjel, and something faint and sweet beneath it.

“Any luck?” Speros asked grimly.

“Sorry, boss.” It was Krolgun who answered, blinking. His eyes looked bleary. “Our mistake. Thought we scented Man-prey close at hand, but it’s gone.”

“You’re sure?” Craning his bent neck, Speros tried to peer past the hulking forms. There was nothing but tunnels and more tunnels, a maze of tunnels, each one narrowing like a funnel into the darkness beneath the mountains.

“Sure enough.” Krolgun shrugged. “Can’t smell prey, and the tunnels are too small to go farther.” He chuckled low in his throat. “Maybe it was you we caught a whiff of.”

“What is that smell?” Speros sniffed the air, trying to identify the underlying odor. It reminded him of his boyhood, long ago; before he had ever filched a coin or borrowed an untended horse, before his father had disavowed his name. A heady odor, like ripe, sun-warm strawberries in the fields of Haimhault.

Krolgun gave another shrug. “Sheep?”

“No, not sheep.” Speros frowned, then shook himself. The torches were guttering for lack of air and his thoughts were doing the same. “Never mind. Let’s get out of here before we suffocate, lads. We’ll double back, retrace our steps. Maybe it was a trick.”

If it was a trick, it was well-played. The Fjel searched every turn and blind alley and found nothing. Speros made his way back through the smoke-wreathed air to where Ghost stood awaiting him with unnatural patience, baring her teeth at his return. He took care to avoid them as he mounted. There was no room to turn her and he had to back her down the tunnel, watching uneasily as the dark maze before him receded.

Surely, no living thing could survive in such a place.

The remainder of their search was uneventful. They traveled at a more moderate pace until they reached the massive rock-pile that blocked the Vesdarlig Passage. The Gulnagel glanced at one another and shrugged.

Speros sighed. “Back toward Darkhaven, lads. Slow and careful, eyes and ears! Aye, and noses, too.”

There was nothing to be found. Hours later they emerged to murky daylight in the Vale of Gorgantum. Speros relayed orders regarding doubled patrolling of the tunnels, then rode toward the fortress to stable Ghost before reporting to General Tanaros. Despite the futility of his mission, open air and Ghost’s smooth, gliding pace cheered him. He wished the news were better, but perhaps it had been a fool’s errand after all, chasing after something a raven had not quite seen. A plaited rope? It may have been, or it may have been the wind in the tall grass. Like as not, it had been. At least he could set the General’s mind at ease. Soon, battle would be upon them and there would be no more need for mucking about after bits and pieces of Haomane’s cursed Prophecy.

Riding toward Darkhaven, Speros of Haimhault smiled and dismissed from his memory the scent of strawberries ripening on the sun-warmed earth.

“Go!” Thulu hissed between his teeth. “Go, lad, go!”

On his hands and knees, Dani scrambled as fast as he could, heedless of the rocks bruising and tearing his skin, horribly aware of the pounding feet and baying voices of the Fjeltroll that pursued them.

Attempting to navigate the Vesdarlig Passage in darkness had been a fearful task, but they had worked out a system. He had taken one wall, and Uncle Thulu the other. As long as each of them kept one hand on their respective walls, they could warn the other of gaps and confer, pooling their knowledge to avoid straying into the side tunnels.

Ominous though the darkness had been, it had saved their lives; or at least prolonged them. With their darkaccustomed eyes, they had seen the torches of the oncoming Fjel in enough time to hide deep in the very side tunnels they had been avoiding.

But the Fjel had caught their scent, and there was nothing for it but to flee and flee and flee, racing ahead of the pursuing torches, the howling Fjel, twisting and turning, deeper into the narrowing maze, running bent, then doubled, then forced to crawl in single file as the tunnels closed in upon them, too small to allow the Fjel to enter.

It was the chance fate afforded them, and they took it.

For what seemed like hours, Dani crawled blindly, scurrying. Terror fueled his flight. He chose at random unseen branches, head lowered and shoulders hunched, protecting the clay vial hanging from his throat, never certain when he would collide headfirst with a wall. Sometimes it happened. His head throbbed, his knees ached, and his hands were slick with blood.

And then there was silence, broken only by the sound of their ragged breathing. There was no sign of pursuit. They had entered a blackness so absolute, it seemed all the light in the world—every candle, every spark, every distant, glimmering star—had been extinguished. Dani slowed, then halted. Like a hunted animal, he crouched in his burrow.

“Do you hear anything?” he whispered.

“No,” his uncle whispered back. “I think we’ve lost them.”

“I think we’ve lost us.” The words were not as frightening as they should have been. Wriggling, Dani maneuvered his body into a sitting position. If he drew his knees up tight to his chest and scrunched low, he could rest his back against the tunnel wall. Just a rest to catch his breath, he thought. It was a relief to have his weight off his bruised knees. The enfolding blackness was reassuring, warm and familiar. And why not? Dying was like being born, after all; so the Song of Being told. Inside the womb there was perfect blackness, although Dani did not remember it.

He remembered his mother, who had died before he was two years old. He remembered warm flesh, soft and dusky, smelling sweetly of milk. In the darkness, Dani smiled. Mother’s milk, the odor of love. She had loved him very much. He remembered his father telling him so, and afterward, after his father was gone, Warabi and old Ngurra, who had raised him, the scent of mother’s milk and warmed flesh, the sharp tang of a wad of well-chewed gamal.

Truly, the blackness was not so terrible.

“Do you smell that, lad?” Uncle Thulu said dreamily. “It’s like the scent of baari-wood, newly peeled, slick with morning dew. Nothing like it, is there?” He laughed softly. “I must have been about your age when I cut my first digging-stick. ‘Learn to follow the veins of the earth,’ old Ngurra told me. ‘The Bearer will have need of your skills.’” Another soft laugh. “Even the wise are wrong sometimes.”

A faint sense of alarm stirred in Dani. “Baari-wood?”

“Peeled clean as a whistle, sweet as dawn.” Uncle Thulu squirmed into place and slumped back against the wall beside him, their shoulders brushing companionably in the darkness. “You’ll see, we’ll go to the grove together, and you’ll see.” He inhaled deeply, then yawned. “You can almost see it now, if you try.”

It was wrong, all wrong. There was no scent of baari-wood in the tunnels, only mother’s milk and desert-warm flesh, and that was wrong, too, because his mother was long dead and his father, too, and there was nothing here save stone and darkness.

“Uncle.” Dani shook Thulu’s unresponsive shoulder. “Something’s not right. We’ve got to keep moving. Please, Uncle!”

“To where, lad?” Thulu asked, peaceable and sleepy. “Back where the Fjel are waiting? That path is gone. Onward to starve in darkness? There’s no way out of here. Better to rest, and dream.”

“No.” Gritting his teeth, Dani wiped the blood from his sticky hands and fumbled for the clay flask, trying to work the cork loose. It was tight; he had made sure of it after his fall had jarred it loose on the plains. His palms burned, his fingers felt thick and clumsy, and it was hard to get a grip on the cork. For a moment he thought, why not rest? Uncle is right, we are lost forever, it’s better to rest and dream.

Then the cork gave way and the scent of the Water of Life arose, and it was clear and clean and potent, heavy with minerals, almost a weight on the tongue, shredding the veils that clouded his mind. With his head heavy and low, Dani took a deep breath, tasting life, verdant and alive, and understood anew how precious and precarious it was, and how tenuous their grasp upon it here in the bowels of the earth.

“Here.” He thrust blindly into the blackness, shoving the flask in the vicinity of his uncle’s nose. “Breathe, Uncle. Breathe deep.”

Thulu did, and shuddered as though awaking from a dream. “Dani?” he murmured. “Dani, lad?”

“I’m here, Uncle.” Retracting the flask, Dani felt for the lip and replaced the cork, banging it in tight with the heel of his wounded palm, repressing a wince. All around them was blackness, and there was no longer any comfort in it. “It’s time.”

“Time?”

“Time to follow the veins of the earth,” Dani said gently. He felt for Thulu’s arm and squeezed it. “We’re under the mountains, Uncle; at least, I think we are. You’re right, there’s no going back, but there’s still forward. Somewhere, these tunnels must emerge, and somewhere there is a river, the Gorgantus River.”

“Yes.” In the blackness, Thulu’s voice was muffled, hands pressed to his face. “Perhaps. Ah, Dani! It’s hard, so hard, buried alive beneath the earth. I wish I had my digging-stick to sense the way. Maybe then …”

“You don’t need it.” Beneath his fingertips, Dani felt the sinews of his uncle’s arm shifting, the blood pulsing steadily under his skin. “Please, Uncle! You can do it, I know. It is what you trained all your life to do. Guide us.”

For a time, an endless time, there was only silence. And then, faint and ragged, a tuneless song. It rose from his belly, rumbling deep in his lungs. In the black bowels of the earth, Thulu of the Yarru-yami sang of water, closing his blind eyes and tracing the veins of the earth, singing the song of its course through the stony flesh of the World God, Uru-Alat. And his voice, at first uncertain and desperate, slowly grew in strength, syllables rolling from his lips like cataracts leaping from a mountain ledge.

“Forward,” he said at last. “You’ll have to lead, lad; there’s not enough room for me to pass you. Forward, and when the path forks, bear to the right.”

Eyes open onto utter blackness, Dani got back onto his hands and knees and began to crawl.

“His lordship wishes to see you.”

In the doorway of her chambers, Cerelinde took a step backward, but having delivered his message, the Havenguard remained waiting in silence, huge and impassive, three of his fellows behind him. Cerelinde glanced behind her at the tapestry with its hidden door.

“It is his Lordship’s custom to send a madling at such times,” she said, temporizing. The prospect of being accompanied solely by the Fjel filled her with deep unease. Damaged and unpredictable though the madlings were, they were not without reverence for the Lady of the Ellylon.

The Havenguard’s features creased, his leathery upper lip drew back to reveal the tips of his eyetusks. “No more since one tried to kill you, Lady.”

On another race, the expression might have passed for a smile. Cerelinde studied him, wondering if it was possible that the Fjeltroll was amused. “What does his Lordship desire?”

The Havenguard shrugged, indicating the irrelevance of the question. He was Mørkhar Fjel, with a dark, bristling hide beneath the gleaming black armor. Whatever his Lordship ordered, he would do. “You.”

Cerelinde fought back a surge of fear and inclined her head. “As he commands.”

They led her through the halls of Darkhaven, along corridors of gleaming black marble, laced with the blue-white veins of the marrow-fire. Their heavy weapons, polished to a bright shine, rattled against their armor. She found herself wishing Tanaros was there, for the Fjel respected and obeyed him. They had no reverence for the Lady of the Ellylon, no awe. Other races among the Lesser Shapers held the Ellylon in high regard. Not so the Fjel, for whom they held little interest.

It was not that she felt it her due, but it was familiar; understood. There was a measure of comfort was in it.

What a terrible thing it was, Cerelinde thought, to be deprived of Haomane’s Gift, the gift of thought. She pitied the Fjel insofar as she was able. It was difficult to pity the pitiless, and the fierce Fjel seemed to her lacking in all sympathy, even for their own plight. It was Satoris’ doing, she supposed, but it made the Fjel no easier to comprehend. Envy, she understood. All of the Lesser Shapers envied Haomane’s Children, for the Chain of Being bound them but loosely and the light of the Souma was their birthright.

Disinterest was another matter, and incomprehensible.

She walked amid the Havenguard, feeling uncommonly small and insignificant. The least among them topped her by head and shoulders, and the Ellylon were a tall folk. Why had Neheris-of-the-Leaping-Waters seen fit to make her children so huge?

Such thoughts, while not comforting, were a welcome distraction, for altogether too soon they emerged through the middle of the threefold doors and descended the spiral stair into the Chamber of the Font. There it was, close and hot, reeking of ichor; the glittering Font, the beating ruby heart of Godslayer, the shadows crowding the corners. There he was, a shadow among shadows, speaking to the Fjel in their own guttural tongue, in a voice so low and resonant it lent a harsh beauty to the words. There were the Fjel, saluting and withdrawing. And then there was only Cerelinde and the Shaper.

“Cerelinde.” He said her name; only that The shadows sighed.

“My Lord.” She lifted her chin and sought not to tremble.

Satoris, Third-Born among Shapers, laughed, and the shadows laughed with him. It was a low laugh, insinuating. “Are you so afraid, Lady of the Ellylon? Have I been such a poor host?” He gestured toward a chair, shadows wreathing his arm. “Sit. I mean you no harm. I would but converse with you upon the eve of battle. Who understands it as do we two?”

Cerelinde sat stiffly. “Do you jest?”

“Jest?” His eyes gleamed out of the shadows, twin coals. “Ah, no, Daughter of Erilonde! I made you an offer, once. Do you recall it?”

She remembered the garden by moonlight, the Sunderer’s hand extended, its shadow stark upon the dying grass. What if I asked you to stay? Her own refusal, and the shivering sound of the sorrow-bells. “I do, my Lord.”

“We reap the fruits of our pride, Cerelinde.” He sighed. “And it is a bloody harvest. I ask again; who understands as do we two?”

“It is not pride, my Lord.” Cerelinde shook her head. “It is hope.”

“Hope?” he echoed.

“Hope.” She repeated the word more firmly. “For a world made whole, healed. For the Souma, made whole and glorious, and order restored. For the Lesser Shapers to become our better selves.” The words, the vision, gave her strength. She remembered a question Meara had posed her, and wondered if she dared to ask it after all. “What is it you are afraid to confront, my Lord?” Cerelinde asked, feeling the stir of ancient Ellylon magics creeping over her skin, the scant remnant of gifts the Rivenlost had ceded to the Sundering. “I, too, posed you a question. I do not believe you answered it.”

“Did I not?” the Shaper murmured.

What might-have-been …

Unexpectedly, Cerelinde found tears in her eyes. She swallowed. “Your crossroads, my Lord. There have been many, but only one is foremost. Three times, Haomane Lord-of-Thought asked you to withdraw your Gift from Arahila’s Children. I asked why you refused him, and you did not answer. Do”—she hesitated—“do you wish to know what might have been if you had acceded?”

Satoris lowered his head, and the shadows roiled. His shoulders hunched, emerging like dark hills from the shadowy sea. His hands knotted into fists, sinew crackling. There was another sound, deep and hollow and bitter, so filled with anger that it took Cerelinde a moment to recognize it as laughter.

“Ah, Cerelinde!” He raised his head. The embers of his eyes had gone out; they were only holes, empty sockets like the Helm of Shadows, filled with unspeakable sorrow. “Do you?”

“Yes.” She made herself hold his terrible gaze. “Yes, my Lord. I do wish to know. I am Haomane’s Child, and we do not thrive in darkness and ignorance.”

“Nothing,” the Shaper said softly. “Nothing, is the answer. I need no trifling Ellyl gift to tell me what I have known for far, far too long.”

“My Lord?” Cerelinde was perplexed.

“Not immediately.” He continued as though she had not spoken, turning his back upon her and pacing the confines of the chamber. “Oh, the world would have gone on for a time, Daughter of Erilonde; Urulat, rigid and fixed. An echelon of order in which Haomane’s Children reigned unchallenged, complacent in their own perfection. A sterile world, as sterile as I have become, ruled by the Lord-of-Thought, in which nothing ever changed and no thing, no matter what its passions, no being, no creature, sought to exceed its place. And so it would be, on and on and on, generation upon generation, age upon age, until the stars fell from the sky, and the earth grew cold, and died.” His voice raised a notch, making the walls tremble. “Is that what you wish?”

“No,” she whispered. “Yet—”

“Look!” Rage thundered in the air around him. He drew near, looming over her, smelling of blood and lightning. “Do you not believe me? Use your paltry Rivenlost magics, and see.”

Shrinking back in her chair, Cerelinde stared into his eyes and saw a barren landscape of cold stone, a dull grey vista stretching on endlessly. There were no trees, no grass, not even a trickle of water. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Nothing lived. Overhead there was only a void; perfect blackness, the space between the stars, aching with the pressure of emptiness. Cold, so cold! Her teeth chattered, her flesh like ice, her bones aching to the marrow.

“Please,” she got out through a clenched jaw. “Please!”

“Life quickens, little Ellyl.” Granting her mercy, he turned away. “Quickens unto death, quickens into generation. Living and dying, giving birth unto ourselves. Everything. Even Shapers,” he added in a low voice. “Even worlds.”

Cerelinde rubbed her arms, trying to restore warmth to her flesh. “Is this the famous wisdom of dragons, my Lord? They twist truth into lies and they are not to be trusted.”

“They are older than the Lord-of-Thought, you know.” His head averted, the Sunderer laughed softly. “Ah, Haomane! We are but parts, scattered and broken; heart and head, limbs and organs. None of us perceives the whole, not even you, my Elder Brother. They do. What they think, what they feel … I cannot say. But they know. And I, I spoke to them, and I am cursed with knowledge for it. Skeins of lies, woven with threads of truth; that is the world we have Shaped. You need me. Urulat needs me; Urulat, Uru-Alat that was, that will be again. I did not choose this role. I do what I must. All things, in the end, must be as they are. Is it not so?”

Uncertain whether he spoke to her or to the specter of Haomane First-Born, Cerelinde gazed at the Shaper’s back; the taut sinews, the wrath-blackened flesh. “Forgive me, but I do not understand.”

“No,” he said. “No, I suppose not. And yet it is in the striving that understanding begins, and that is the seed of generation that begets worlds.” Again, Satoris gave his soft, dark laugh. “You should strive, little Ellyl; as all of us should. He made you too well, my Elder Brother did. Mortality serves a purpose. Oronin’s Horn blows seldom for Haomane’s Children. No urgency quickens your flesh, no shadow of exigency spurs your thoughts. What would you have to strive for, were it not for me?”

“You pretend you do us a service,” Cerelinde murmured.

“No.” The Shaper’s shoulders hunched, rising like stormclouds. “I do the world a service. By my very existence, by this role not of my choosing.”

“The world,” Cerelinde echoed, feeling weariness settle upon her. She was tired; tired of fear, tired of lies. Lies, piled upon lies; half-truths and evasions. Some things were known. Some things were true. “My Lord, if you cared so much for the world, why did you Sunder it?”

“I DID NOT SUNDER THE WORLD!”

Satoris Banewreaker’s fist crashed against the wall of the chamber; shadows roiled and sinews cracked, and Darkhaven shuddered from its foundation to its towers. The Font leapt, spewing blue-white fire, shedding sparks on the stone floor. Within its flames, Godslayer pulsed. He stood, breathing hard, his back to her. Ichor ran in rills down his inner thigh, black and oily.

“I did not Sunder the world,” he repeated.

And Haomane smote the earth with his sword, and the earth was divided and the heat of Uru-Alat severed from the body. And in accordance with Meronin’s will, the Sundering Sea rushed in to fill the divide, and so it was done.

“You shattered the Souma,” Cerelinde said in a small voice.

“Not alone.” Satoris Third-Born, who was once called the Sower, sighed. Lifting his head, he gazed toward the west, as though he could see through the stone walls of Darkhaven to the isle called Torath, the Crown, where the Six Shapers dwelled in the broken glory of the Souma. “Never alone.” He shivered, lowering his head. “Go, little Ellyl, Daughter of Erilonde. I was wrong to summon you here. There is no hope, no hope at all.”

“There is always hope,” Cerelinde said.

“Will you ever harp upon it?” Satoris pitted his furrowed brow with his fingertips. “For your kind, perhaps. My Gift, the Gift my Elder Brother refused … it lies awaiting you in the loins of the Scion of Altorus. There are ways and ways and ways. Perhaps, then; perhaps not. It is your sole chance. Why else do you suppose Haomane’s Prophecy is as it is?” He smiled grimly. “For me, there is nothing. And yet you are all my Children in the end. Make no mistake, I have sown the seeds of my own regeneration. In one place or another, they will take root.”

“My Lord?”

“Go.” He waved one hand. “Go, and begone from my sight, for you pain me.”

Summoned by arcane means, the Havenguard appeared at the top of the spiral stair. There they waited, impassive in the flame-shot darkness.

The Sunderer pointed. “GO!”

Cerelinde climbed the stair slowly, her limbs stiff with the residue of fear and bone-deep cold. Below, Satoris Banewreaker resumed his pacing, disturbing the shadows. He glanced often toward the west and muttered to himself in a strange tongue, filled with potent, rolling syllables; the Shapers’ tongue, that had not been heard on Urulat since the world was Sundered. One word alone Cerelinde understood, uttered in a tone of anguish and betrayal.

“Arahila!”

And then the Fjel led her away and the threefold door closed behind her, and Cerelinde of the House of Elterrion was escorted back to her chambers to await the outcome of the war that would decide her fate.

In the empty garden, beneath Arahila’s moon, sorrow-bells chimed unheard.