Brammelwurzand the Echo Bowl of Minareth

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The morning over Minareth was cold, even for gnomes with weatherproof beards. A touch of frost coated the ancient walls, and from the depths of the city rose the echo of a bell tolling, though no bell tolled. Brammelwurz paused, his cap slightly askew in wonder, and listened to the soundless reverberation. "Sounds like silence trying to remember," he murmured, running his hand along the wall of the amphitheater, which lay half-ruined beneath the earth. Legend said that in Minareth, every word ever spoken was recorded. Not in books. In stone. And in a bowl that preserved the sound of the past. The Echo Bowl of Minareth. He had hesitated for a long time before answering the call. Not because he was afraid—but because in some places, one received answers that weren't meant for oneself. And yet... something deep within him had vibrated when the clock roots in his greenhouse had begun to grow backward. The subterranean passages of Minareth were narrow and moss-covered. Between the pillars of the past, stone statues no longer bore faces, but holes from which voices might once have flowed. And then, in an oval hall, he found it. The bowl. It was made of a material that was neither stone nor metal. Almost transparent, but solid. As tall as a gnome, with cracks like veins. Lights swam in its center—not reflections, but memories, shimmering like waves of sound in water. Brammelwurz approached cautiously. The room breathed differently. More quietly. As if it were holding its breath. He raised his hand. Touched the rim. A sound resounded—not outside, but inside his head. Like a call that had never been spoken, but heard nonetheless. And then a voice spoke: "Why did you remain silent when you should have spoken?" Brammelwurz flinched. The voice was his own. Young. Impatient. "I..." he began—and immediately his answer became part of the shell. The clay rolled back, a second time, a third time, until it warped like warm dough. He felt memories rising: the first time he grew a time spore seed. The day he hid the greenhouse. And that one hour he had erased—from memory, from the calendar, from himself. "What happened in that hour?" he asked. The shell was silent. But inside it, a scene was forming: another gnome, younger even than he, with a soot-blackened face and a tool in his hand. He spoke—but his mouth remained silent. An argument. A farewell. A mistake. Brammelwurz breathed heavily. "I don't remember him. Who was that?" And then, for the first time, the shell itself seemed to speak. Without voice. Without sound. Only with a name that fell into his heart like a lost seed. "Marfen." Brammelwurz stepped back. The name vibrated within him. A memory that had never been spoken—because he himself had erased it. Or because it had hurt too much? He didn't know. But as he turned and left the hall, his step was slower.