The Mortal Chime

[CharmingCavalier 1723]

 

The Mortal Chime

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Penned in 1812 IST by Henry Penton

Originally Published 1812 IST. Publicly Published in 1837 IST.

 

 

FOREWORD

 

I had originally set out, in 1810, to write a Tuvmas tale, seeing Oren lacking a familiar tale of the occasion. Despite my best efforts I was unsuccessful in creating my vision, though it has morphed into its own form of literature. Seeing as I have aged, I have found it necessary to publicly publish much of my early works that were once exclusively for sale at my bookshop. So, please enjoy one of my earliest works, a short story on madness: The Mortal Chime.

 

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The door creaked open, a bright light shone across the dark alleyway. Wyatt’s eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness of the store when the keep spoke. “You come to me on Tuvmas, of all days. My store is shut up tight as the snow falls this very day and you expect me to do business?”

 

Wyatt refuted the shopkeep, “I only wish to sell my possessions. So that I can -”

 

“I care not for your worries, only your wares.” With that Wyatt was admitted into the blackness that was the cold shop. The two settled on either side of a counter, the candle resting neatly between them. “If I am to do business this day you will need to give full account of how you came into the possession of these fine objects.”

 

“I- I was gifted them by my uncle, sir,” Wyatt muttered.

 

“Quite the collector he is,” said the shopkeep as he was turned and looking for his books of account. This pale, stout, man stood before Wyatt and quickly returned to examine the fine plates Wyatt had distributed before him. He picked one up, peering over his frames.

 

Wyatt spoke as his goods were examined, “I should also need to purchase a gift. You see, I have been invited as a guest to dine with the parents of an eligible woman. Out of respect I thought it necessary to produce a complement.”

 

The silence loomed as the man examined each of the plates. Inside Wyatt’s head there were many thoughts, but most of all there were thoughts of the clocks. Their ticking has swallowed up the silence that once lingered.

 

“I wish not to be an obstacle for a good man like yourself to secure a favorable match.” He would stoop and retrieve a wrapped hand mirror, unwrapping it on the counter.

 

“A mirror,” he would stand in anger, pushing the stool he sat on to the floor with his sudden rise. “For Tuvmas?! You expect me to gift a woman such a thing?”

 

“Of course, it is a lovely quality. Imported!” The merchant tried to reckon with Wyatt’s disillusionment with the object.

 

Wyatt spoke louder, “I shall not curse another to look upon themselves when I have no want to look upon my own complexion.”

 

The pale man somehow seemed paler as he retorted, “your lady, though, may find the action far more pleasing than yourself.”

 

“What do you know of ladies,” shot back Wyatt. “Have you ever been in love?!”

 

“Love - BAH! I had not the time nor the interest to trifle in such affairs,” chuckled the keep. “Now, will you take this glass or not?”

 

Wyatt scowled, “what other wares have you good friend? I should need options.”

 

The merchant frowned, begrudgingly stooping once more to retrieve another curiosity. Wyatt moved around the counter in darkness and silence, save the insesintent ticking of the clocks.

 

“Perhaps this bowl,” he said as he rose. From behind Wyatt bounded upon his helpless victim. A flash struck through the darkness as a dagger fell, lit by the sole candlelight. The man struggled, but two more blows sent him sprawling, his head hitting the corner of the counter on his descent.

 

Small voices joined in a chorus that engulfed the shop. They scored the time, some in a cumbersome manner and others in a hurried fashion. Nonetheless, they told the hour with intricate tickings. Wyatt’s eyes turned to his victim, a pool of blood and a pile of clothes were what he saw. The limbs were scattered and the scene was repugnant to him. In his head the ideas of time struggled to compete with the chimes. For while time had closed for the keep it had remained for him.

 

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden cacophony, as the clocks struck three in the morn. Deep thunderous swells meshed with the high treble notes of dancing. He staggered, as he realized the clocks were intertwined with the worst fate a man can see - his own face in a mirror. Panic set in - he should have chosen an hour when the streets were busy but not many would enter the shop. Someone may have heard the sounds among the silence of the eve. There remained an incessant tolling which ceased at the sound of rats moving in the attic above, only to have it continue following the soft steps fading away.

 

 So Wyatt ran from the sound, up to the attic and shut himself in. The brief respite let him observe the dismantled, uncarpeted, room that lay before him. But it was just as he walked further into the room that he heard it - a step mounting the stairs. Its slow pace, yet steady, ended - and for a moment Wyatt let go of his breath. Then the knob slowly rotated accompanied by a whining creak from the door. Was it the law, coming to bring him to justice? Was it the shopkeep - a dead man walking?! Perhaps a person who had, by mistake, found the body and now sought to consign him to the gallows?

 

“Good evening, Wyatt,” spoke the thing pleasantly as it closed the door. Wyatt knew, a conviction so true, that this thing was not of God. “The marks are in the draw by his bed, left side,” spoke the thing softly.

 

Wyatt was silent.

 

“Well, perhaps you can leave it,” the thing said as it paced before the man. It’s grey aurora clung to the air, darkening darkness a shade more. “Fair warning, Wyatt Gresnick, Mrs. Thumble the maid left her house a few minutes ago, earlier than usual I should say. If you were found here I have no doubt you know the outcome?”

 

Wyatt spoke up, “You know me?”

 

The thing nodded, “You are a personal favorite of mine, dear Wyatt.”

 

“And what are you,” demanded Wyatt in a hushed yell.

 

“Does it matter, truly? What I am does not change what I can do for you.”

 

“Do for me? I had supposed you were intelligent! No man does for another, instead all men are born, live, and die in a land of hulking giants. Those monsters drag you by your bare wrists, from the womb to the grave! The hateful giants of natural circumstance. No sir, you cannot do anything for me, nor can I do anything for myself. Humanity is but an unwilling player in the fates.”

 

“Deep thoughts indeed,” the thing replied, “but I have no interest in your role in the events, only that the events conspired. Alas, time does fly indeed. The servant, with every step, comes closer to you. As if the gallows had been sent to find you themselves! Such a magnificent sight to see death personified walking through our Tuvmas streets!” The things voice got serious, “Now, shall I help you? Shall I tell you a way out?”

 

The ringing started again, “had it been an hour,” thought Wyatt. Sounds of bells ruptured through the floorboards, shaking his skull. “For what cost,” he screamed as he covered his ears in pain.

 

The thing’s fiendish smile protruding from the darkness. “My Tuvmas gift to you, of course.”

 

Wyatt surged forth, falling to his knees. “No! If I had been lost in the woods for thirty days, dying of hunger, and it was your hand which offered me the bread of life, I should find the courage to refuse you.”

 

The thing leaned down, its rot stinking up Wyatt’s nostrils. “I have no objections to a deathbed confession. You are but an evil man, and evil men should confess, no?”

 

Wyatt shrieked, the throbbing noise has engulfed his senses. He closed his eyes and said, “I confess to being a slave to poverty and a indulger of vices! I had hoped to marry, and in that action free myself of my past. I prize not love, I love not an honest woman but a rich one. And I killed the keep not because he was cruel or unfair in our dealings but because he tried to show me the truth in my reflection. Evil.”

 

Then Wyatt opened his eyes, seeing the maid in front of him. The other thing had gone, leaving the sunrise to fill the room with gleams of soft light. The dirty maid clutched her bosom as Wyatt rose, the ringing deafening him to her words of inquiry. He spoke quietly, the chimes parting for his words, “Go and seek out the guards. I confess it, I have killed the shopkeep.”

 

It was four days later that the bells chimed once more, this time for the life of Wyatt Gresnick, his body hung limp.

 

"From life's inception we trudge towards death.

The middle of the story is brief glimpses of insanity

among many sorrowful stints of sanity."

 

                                      - Henry Penton, 1837