The tolling did not stop with nightfall. It came again and again, every few hours, each strike heavier, slower, like marrow cracking against stone. The sound burrowed into my chest, setting my ribs vibrating until it felt as though the Spine of Iron itself was being rung like a chime. I could not sleep. Even when my eyes closed, the bell followed me into the dark.
Seraphine lay on the other cot, her iron arm resting on the warped boards, its pistons hissing faintly in dreamless rest. But her human hand twitched with every toll, curling into a fist as if ready for a fight even in sleep. I envied her steel, her stubbornness. My body had no such armor. Every toll cost me.
By dawn, the bell's sound had thickened. It was no longer a simple chime but a resonance carried through the bones of the city. Windows rattled in their frames. Shutters groaned. Even the fog seemed to move with the bell's rhythm, drawing inward with each toll like breath pulled against unwilling lungs.
The Ledger opened itself before I even rose from the cot. Its page glowed faintly in the dim light:
Phenomenon Identified: Bell of Bone.
Nature: Toll collects marrow debt.
Directive: Investigate source. Warning: Delay increases cost.
I dragged myself upright, throat burning as I forced words out. "Seraphine. The bell isn't just sound. It's a debt-collector."
Her eyes snapped open immediately. She swung her legs over the side of the cot, iron arm clamping back into place with a hiss. "Where?"
The Ledger inked the answer:
Origin: Ossuary Quarter. Beneath the Cathedral of St. Ebron.
Seraphine spat. "Of course. The priests."
We left the inn as the fog lifted sluggishly from the canals. Citizens stood in doorways, clutching their chests each time the bell struck. Some coughed blood into rags. Others leaned against walls, pale and trembling, as though their marrow itself were being drawn from their bones. Children cried, mothers hushed them, but no voice was loud enough to drown the bell.
"They don't even hear it right," Seraphine muttered as we walked. "They think it's just tolling for a saint's feast. They don't know their blood is being drained with every strike."
I rasped, "They'll learn… when they collapse."
The Ledger flared as we crossed into the Ossuary Quarter. Here, the air was heavier, thick with the copper-salt tang of old blood. Catacombs ran beneath every street, ossuaries carved from stone and bone stacked high as walls. The bell tolled louder here, rattling the lanterns along the bridges. My candle-mark flickered weakly, almost snuffed by the weight of the sound.
The Cathedral loomed at the heart of the quarter, its spire cracked, its stained glass darkened by grime. The bell tower rose crooked, leaning as though about to topple into the canal below. Each toll made the whole structure groan.
Seraphine's iron arm glowed faintly. "Whatever rings that bell, it isn't a priest anymore."
We pushed through the Cathedral's heavy doors. Inside, shadows clung to the pews like parishioners. Candles guttered though no draft stirred them. At the far end, beneath a mural of saints whose faces had been scratched away, a staircase spiraled down into darkness.
The bell tolled again. The whole Cathedral shook. Dust drifted from the rafters like ash. I staggered, knees buckling, as pain lanced through my bones. My marrow throbbed in time with the sound, as though trying to escape my body.
The Ledger scrawled:
Warning: Debtor below. Entity unknown. Threads thick with bone.
Seraphine caught my arm, steadying me. "Stay up here if you can't stand. I'll—"
I shook my head, voice shredded but firm. "No. It's the Ledger's work. It won't take your hand."
She studied me, jaw clenched, then nodded. "Then I'll break whatever tries to take yours."
We descended into the catacombs. The walls were lined with skulls and femurs, stacked into patterns of crosses and spirals. The air grew colder with each step, the smell of damp stone and rotting cloth wrapping around us. The tolling grew deafening, vibrating through the bones until the walls themselves seemed to hum.
At last, we entered a vast chamber. A pit yawned at its center, lined with rib-bones like teeth. And above it swung the Bell of Bone. It was not forged metal but a cage of skeletal fragments lashed together with sinew, ribcages clattering each time it swung. A massive femur served as its clapper, striking the bone-cage with each arc.
But it did not swing alone.
A figure stood beneath the bell, arms outstretched, strings of sinew running from its fingertips to the cage above. It was gaunt, its skin tight over bones that gleamed faintly in the torchlight. Its face was a skull painted with thin strips of flesh, lips stretched too wide. With each toll, the sinew threads pulled tighter, and marrow-light spilled from its chest into the bell.
The Ledger burned hot enough to blister my ribs. Ink scrawled in furious strokes:
Debtor Identified: The Ringer.
Nature: Spends marrow of witnesses. Collects debt through sound.
Directive: Sever connection. Balance demanded.
The Ringer's hollow eyes lifted toward us, and its teeth clicked together in a grin. When it spoke, its voice was not sound but vibration, a resonance that rattled through my bones:
"Clerk. Ledger-bearer. Come pay your toll."
—End of Chapter 26—