The Broken Bell

The stained glass shattered from end to end and side to side. Angels and saints alike broke and tumbled and fell.

The sky beyond it boiled. Strange lights played there.

Something exploded, far above, and again, and again, and again.

The Father prophesied we’d enjoy a marriage that lasted all our lives, Darla and I.

That’s the thing about prophecy. Even when it’s entirely correct, it can still bite you in the ass.

The broken remnants of the window struck the floor with the sound of the earth breaking, showering us all with glass. No one was injured, though Mr. Tibbles was enraged beyond reason by the noise of it all.

Father Wickens shouted and bade the guards to open the doors. They did so, and the Father blessed us once again.

“Go in peace,” he concluded. “Heaven help us.”

Shattered saints and broken Angels crunched beneath our feet. Hand in hand, we left the Chamber. I didn’t follow Father Wickens toward the catacombs. I didn’t see the point.

Darla smiled at me. Flashes lit the windows beside us. Strange grumblings rattled doors, and echoed down the long cold halls.

“We might as well have a look outside, don’t you think?”

“I do indeed, husband,” she said as we passed under the last threshold.

“Then we shall, wife,” I replied. I opened the last door for her, as a gentleman should, and we stepped through it.

The skies lit up, and we watched the glow together.

Epilogue

And that was how we spent our wedding day.

Oh, there’s more, of course. We stole another horse, for instance. The new Mrs. Markhat clubbed a bridge clown unconscious with his own duck-headed walking stick. We got as far as the Brown before I realized the lights in the sky and the infant thunder weren’t cannon fire at all.

We reached the Brown River Bridge just as the Regency hove into view, firing her fireworks from every deck.

Evis still claims he intended the fireworks to be, and I’m quoting him here, a “…triumphant, regal celebration of Rannit’s victory over the forces of the North.”

Instead, he panicked the entire city, incited my new wife to horse-thievery and violence toward hapless clowns, and nearly did as much property damage as the invaders themselves had in mind.

But, as Evis is quick to point out, his fireworks display also sent people scurrying for shelter. And since the storm that followed practically on the Regency’s wheel was a sorcerer storm designed to kill, he might have a point about having saved thousands of lives.

The storm was the worst ever seen, even among the oldsters who swear everything that happened before the War was bigger, badder and meaner than anything born since. Whirlwinds rolled off the river, winding down streets with aim and clear purpose. Hailstones the size of hogsheads bashed roofs and left wagons smashed to splinters. Lightning fell and fell and fell, leaving fires and ruin in its wake, even as the whirlwinds raged.

The Sorcerer’s Storm, it’s being called. And so it was. Sent ahead to soften up Rannit’s defenses, and even though Evis left the barge fleet bottlenecked and impotent after blowing the pass, the storm had raced after the Regency, even as Evis pushed the churning vessel as hard as he dared.

I’m told we’re recovering portions of the barge fleet at the rate of two barges a day. The Corpsemaster is using some of the captured cannon on the walls and is melting the rest down. I gather she found their design rather crude and has far better uses for the raw metal.

The trio of wizards fell upon each other the moment they saw the blockage in the Brown. I’m told that clash reduced the size of their army considerably, and that those who survived took to the woods and fled north on foot.

Word is that only a few dozen survived the hike.

I don’t care to speculate on the fate of the rest, though I’m sure the Corpsemaster is pleased with her new soldiers.

Mama Hog returned yesterday. Her shop made it through the Sorcerer’s Storm with not a plank out of place. She was careful to spread the word among the neighbors that she had special protections against storms and the like, although she confided to me that she had no such thing and was amazed she still had a tin roof to sleep under.

She hasn’t quite forgiven me for marrying Darla in her absence. I doubt she ever will, as my doing so robbed her forever of a told you so moment she will never see again.

Buttercup and Gertriss are fine. Hell, even Three-leg Cat weathered the storm with no apparent injury. When I did pick my way through the rubble back to my office, he was sitting in the open doorway, glaring at me with his nearly perfected tomcat contempt.

Buttercup ruined his moment by hop skipping to appear directly behind him before scooping him up in a big tight hug.

Poor damned cat was so shocked he completely forgot to claw her eyes out.

So we’re back together, my little family and I. Even Evis, that brandy-loving devil, popped around last night with a proper wedding gift.

It’s a magical dingus that must have cost him a fortune, in the form of a head-sized glass globe that lights up if you shake it gently. Lights up, and shows a tiny Regency churning its way down a tiny Brown River, while fireworks and flashes light up a tiny sky.

Darla loves it. She claims she can see Evis on the Regency’s deck, waving to us.

I cannot. But I just smile and put my arm around her and we watch the thing together, while Buttercup plays with Three-leg Cat and Mama stomps and Gertriss makes up another excuse to go see Evis at Avalante.

There’s magic in Evis’s glass ball, all right.

And it’s not the only, or the most potent, magic in the room these days.