1.21

~Wel­come, stranger. Wel­come to this land. Wel­come to, the city of Bells~

It start­ed with one man’s voice, dis­tant and clear as a bell, like a friend across the desert, hand raised in greet­ing. He spoke a sim­ple chant in the native tongue of the land, through broad­cast speak­ers, call­ing for oth­ers to join in.

~The bells ring wel­come. The bells ring true. The bells ring safe­ty, for your peo­ple and you~

Join they did, catch­ing the famil­iar dip and rise of the first verse. A wait­er sung it loud­ly and clear as he served an excit­ed table of four a tray of pas­tries. A delin­quent child hummed it idly, skip­ping stones at a near­by trash­can along the rhythm. A half-bent elder, stopped and straight­ened, paus­ing their sweep of the park’s lit­ter to recite their mem­o­ry of it with their eyes closed.

From the win­dows and street cor­ners and side­walks, the cit­i­zens of Cam­mec joined into the call of their anthem, an open embrace to the vis­i­tors among them. The peo­ple in Cam­mec’s city square thun­dered a wel­come that echoed across the city, not know­ing who they greet­ed.

~Break bread at our table. Regale us with your tri­als and deeds.
Our hum­ble desert home is yours, should you ever need~

As the short chant end­ed, all eyes trav­eled to the emp­ty stage that had been raised and ham­mered togeth­er in the cen­ter of the square--and at the soli­tary black mic that stood atop it. Most had their eyes drawn there from a strange, unex­plained sense of ani­mal antic­i­pa­tion. But for those that knew, they wait­ed for a cer­tain some­one to appear. The per­son whose pres­ence would prove that they had come to the right place, the true host city of the Chal­lenger’s Guild’s infa­mous Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge. The Direc­tor of the Guild him­self.

Those hopes were dashed as, with a spray of pur­ple smoke, a man wear­ing an elab­o­rate­ly embroi­dered white and gold bisht took to the stage with a grand flour­ish. A rip­ple of silent groans swept through the wait­ing crowd. Those that knew who this man was, knew he was as irrel­e­vant as could be.

“Wel­come, can­di­dates, wel­come!” said the may­or of Cam­mec. “Wel­come to our city! We, the denizens of the city of Bells, are proud to extend our hands in…?”

This man, with his pol­ished fore­head and too-white teeth, was not the per­son the can­di­dates were wait­ing for. Not at all. They met this vapid fool’s greet­ing with a sea of cold, hard expres­sions.

The may­or frowned and tapped the mic. The speak­ers loud­ly pro­ject­ed sev­er­al muf­fled thuds. He swal­lowed and tried again.

“Cam­mec--ah… Cam­mec is… uh… hon­ored…”

With each word he tried to speak, with each sec­ond that he wast­ed, more and more faces grew hos­tile. This was not who’d they trav­elled the world to lis­ten speak. This was not the per­son they’d spent their last demi-cterl to come see. He was a talk­er, a jab­ber, a man of soft hand­shakes and unwant­ed kiss­es on baby’s fore­heads. Per­haps the man they sought would show up if they grabbed this use­less one and threw him into the near­est dump­ster. Per­haps that man would show up even faster if they cov­ered this danc­ing rat in tar and sand and dragged him through the streets. Per­haps faster yet if they put his mouthy lit­tle grem­lin head on a pike and…

Cold steel in the air. The may­or, savvy politi­cian that he was, could rec­og­nize when he was­n’t want­ed in a space, rare as that was. He dabbed at his fore­head and searched for the face of even a sin­gle friend­ly con­stituent. Sure­ly there was at least one there; he’d only bare­ly lost the pop­u­lar vote!

Bet­ter read­ers of the room than he, much of the cit­i­zen­ry of the city were already mak­ing them­selves scarce. Awk­ward rustling sounds were pro­ject­ed through­out the square as the may­or fum­bled through his pock­ets for his speech, and he knocked the mic out of the stand and sent a screech of feed­back rip­ping through the air.

A strong, but aging hand caught the mic midair. The may­or glanced over at his res­cuer in relief.

“Don’t over­think it, boy,” said the old man as he dropped the mic back into his hand. “Just intro­duce me and begone.”

The may­or blinked as the final line of his speech popped into his mind, like a trans­mis­sion from the divine. Though he could­n’t sum­mon a sin­gle oth­er word of it, he blurt­ed out what he remem­bered into the mic.

“W-with­out fur­ther ado, wel­come to the stage the Chal­lenger Guild’s one and only Direc­tor Meibai!”

The crowd roared. They hollered so loud, if felt as though the air itself was shak­ing. The may­or fled the stage, and the mad­ness.

The Direc­tor bathed in the screams and cheers with a harsh, uncar­ing smile, wait­ing for it to sub­side. Which it did with­out a sin­gle wave of his hand or shout. The can­di­dates that had gath­ered here today want­ed his words, vis­cer­al­ly, like they were long-suf­fer­ing appren­tices, and he was the dying sage whis­per­ing the secrets of immor­tal­i­ty. Even a cer­tain trio of can­di­dates in their café, far, far away, were sat on the edges of their seats, eyes bright, ears hun­gry.

The leg­endary Chal­lenger regard­ed them all with a master’s rigid pos­ture, scan­ning face by face, until it felt like every­one in the square had met his pierc­ing gaze. He raised a hand and spoke.

“Par­tic­i­pants of the 1079th Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge. I feel your will, your intent, in the air. And I must say…”

“…pathet­ic.”

He slashed his hand down, the word ring­ing out across the square, as harsh and deri­sive as his sneer. He glared down at them all, like he was dis­gust­ed he had to share this space with them, like their very pres­ence affront­ed him.

“Oh, how the world wanes in its splen­dor! When I start­ed on my path years ago, only the tru­ly great deigned to set them­selves to take on the Chal­lenge. The men and women I shared those days with--leg­ends, each one, that carved the world anew with their fire and spir­it. But when I look at you…pfah! Every year, the pool of Chal­lenger can­di­dates grows, and every year, like a drop of quick­sil­ver in an ever-deep­en­ing pond, the sacred spark of human­i­ty is dimin­ished by the banal and emp­ty. Most of you should not even be here.”

“Still, sick­ly and over­crowd­ed lit­ter that you are, I shall warn your gen­er­a­tion no dif­fer­ent from any oth­er. Hear me. The path of the Chal­lenger is not for the meek. If you har­bor any doubt in your heart, turn away. Tuck your tails and scat­ter.”

With a casu­al act of super­hu­man strength, the Direc­tor slammed the met­al stand in his hand against the stage and split it length­wise with a deaf­en­ing crack. The shear­ing noise bounced back from the sur­round­ing build­ings like the sec­ond stomp in a salute. As the struc­ture he stood upon shud­dered and tilt­ed, the Direc­tor’s gazed roved the crowd, search­ing, prob­ing, for any weak­ness.

Was there an expla­na­tion for his pow­er? How did a human man­age that, let alone as man old as he? Such ques­tions failed to cross the minds of can­di­dates in the square as they met the Direc­tor’s stare with­out a flinch. After all, the mighty were mighty, and he was known to be the might­i­est of all. There was noth­ing to ques­tion.

After sev­er­al long sec­onds, Meibai broke out into a hard grin. He nod­ded in approval.

“Good. It is well that you know that your weak­ness now means naught. Just as the grand­est of drag­ons are born mewl­ing, even I once stood in your place. All that remains is to prove your­self and grow. Are you ready?”

He roared the ques­tion and in response, the crowd raised their fists and howled back. It was com­ing their way--fate, chance, and every regret they would ever dread. Their time was now!

Win­dows rat­tled, the ground trem­bled, and cut­lery trem­bled on tables from all the stamp­ing of feet. The cheer­ing only rose high­er as Direc­tor Meibai raised a hand.

“The five Tri­als of Con­stan­cy, Change, Choice, Cost, and Con­flict await you!” he shout­ed. “These have been the pil­lars of chal­lenger­hood since ages long past, and to join our ranks, you must pass the muster of each, each under the dis­cern­ing eyes of our hon­ored mem­bers. A great hur­dle, I know, but I am cer­tain we shall meet beyond the fin­ish­ing line!”

A thou­sand, thou­sand bells rang thun­der­ous­ly in con­cert across the city as Direc­tor Meibai thrust his fist into the air. The stage lit up behind him, burn­ing a sin­gle word into the reti­nas of all watch­ing.

 

“Now go! Show me your worth! Let the bells toll a new begin­ning for your lives!”