At the bell tower

The bell tower was built by people a thousand years ago, the big jade bell a thousand years old and never rung.  "Some things are more precious with use," he said to me, "and some things more precious without use."  We bathed in the water surrounding the tower, because that was the ritual.  I looked up at the bell and realized its enormity.  The closer we approached, the larger it loomed.  It was a giant artifact of craftsmanship and exquisite beauty.  When I tell the story years from now, I'll pretend I was not afraid of the enormity of it all.  When I tell the story years from now, I'll remember only the thrill of ceremony in retrospect.  At the time, though, the water was frigid cold against my bare skin, all the better to purify motive and intent.  "Today is a day for precious utility," he said.

After bathing, he carried me from the water and lifted me to the top of the stairs.  As if the threshold were as sacred as the water from which we emerged, he stepped carefully and I could feel the change of before and after.  Even through a simple doorway, a change of before and after.

"Where I am from, water purifies," he said gently, talking into my ear,  and then he said, "Music also purifies."  We stood at a singing bowl, the tones of which he commanded with a beautifully ornate stick.  He drew the sound from the singing bowl until it filled the forest surrounding us, creating a sacred space that I'll never forget.  For ritual spaces, this one rules.  The way the tone struck my heart and resonated, it is hard to describe: if you have ever craved a place to hide, or if you have ever craved the lash of a waking whip, or if you have ever craved the soft touch on your cheek, these things approach the intense feeling of "needs met" that this perfect, sacred, musical tone symbolizes.  He claimed me with a watermark, a "T" he drew upon my face, and the water was warmed by his skin and made me feel alive.  And then I claimed him, too.

"This is the most sacred spot," he said to me, then, when we reached the platform of the bell itself.  Naturally, he tied me in rope.  Hoisting me aloft, I was suspended just like the bell was, hung from giant wooden rafters.  He retrieved a thick leather collar, metal studded and iron-worked, from a basket left by the ancients who had built this place, and he fastened the collar easily around my throat.  Another leather strap for his wrist, similarly studded and wrought with the same shining metals, and we were clothed together only in our bond, then.  "Your neck, your life, mine.  My sword, my life, yours," he said to me.  The exchange of power happens by the bell.  The collar is engraved with "Eternal," and his wristband is engraved with "Solid."  Solid and eternal.  I know what it feels like to be collared for life.

"Cherished, protected, sacred," he whispered at me then, lowering me gently and winding the cords of black rope around my wrists for keeping.  He will use them again, but not this afternoon.  We settle upon the wooden floor beneath the great bell, and he sounds the gong so that it echoes for miles beyond over big water.  His back was to the bell, and my face buried in his chest, so that I could hear the sound but not feel the vibration.  Cherished, protected, sacred.  The door to the belltower is open, and the bell has sounded for the first time in a thousand years.  I wear the collar of Tasdron Dryke and it is a collar I shall not remove for the rest of my life, and if he means to take it from me, he takes my life with it.