The Enigmatic Sage Legends – The Bell Mother

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No chronicler mentions her true name, for no one who knew it has ever found their breath again. They call her only the Bell Mother, and this title alone is enough to lock doors, draw curtains, and break off conversations. They say she doesn't wander like ordinary travelers along paths or across fields. She treads through fog, through smoke, through the silence between two tolls of the bell. Wherever she appears, no thunder announces her, no storm, no curse. Only a sound. Not a clear bell call, such as churches proudly ring out, but a deep, dull ringing, like the striking of iron underwater. It echoes not in the ears, but in the bones. Whoever hears it knows that something is coming to an end—not life, but lies. They have seen her, old guards claim, in gray robes, barefoot, her back bent under an invisible weight. No jewelry adorns her, no staff supports her, and yet she walks as if every stone beneath her feet belonged to her. Her face is crisscrossed with wrinkles like the arid land of riverbeds, but her eyes shine like freshly polished bronze. She never speaks. She never raises her hand. She never intrudes. She only rings. Some swear she carries no bell, that the sound emerges from her chest. Others claim she holds it invisibly behind their backs, and that no one must see it, or their gaze will freeze forever. Children sense it first. Dogs too. Horses kick out, even oxen rear up. Adults, on the other hand, only hear it when they have something to hide. A husband who has broken his oath to his wife. A judge who has allowed himself to be bought. A son who has forgotten his father. Those who are guilty hear it closer. With every breath the ringing draws closer to the heart. Some run, some beg for forgiveness, but those who try to hide now hear the sound from within. And those who follow it, out of defiance or foolish hope, do not return. Once, a man was seen standing at the edge of the forest, silent, motionless, for days. No one dared to touch him. When they finally approached, there was no life left in him, yet no smell of decay hung around him. He just stood there, as if still listening. Some believe the Bell Mother is not an enemy. She does not take lives—she only takes the insincere. Some priests claim she is the Harvest Emperor's sister, born of the same fear. Others see her as the forgotten wife of a throne-claimant who once wept too much and remained silent too little. The only thing that is certain is that she never appears in the same village twice. Once she has taken you, she moves on. Not satisfied, not exulting—only fulfilled. As if she had a duty that no one wants to understand.