Caravellum

“Why do we endure this life without light?”
I deliver my final call with pride, the carefully timed rhythm of the chant culminating in its final beat. I sit cross-legged behind the ancient figure of the Cantor Superior. His head is bowed as he murmurs the refrain: “For the sun will rise once our penance is done.”

His hand, twisted bone from which slackened skin drooped, flicks a counter across the abacus before him – the fourth. I stand, pounding life into my legs with balled fists, as the cantor next to me commences her hour-verse; “What awaits us beyond this life betwixt stone?”

I walk to the girth of braided cord that hangs beside the eastern tableau, golden fibres shimmering in the light of the brazier like the tail of a slumbering dragon. With two hands, I pull the weight towards me. A deep, timbrous tone emerges from the belltower above, echoing through the room, and out the arched openings along the walls into the town-caverns beyond. I give the echo time to clear from the outskirts in the far tunnels, and watch with joy as our haven begins to stir, parallel in time with the wild sun above, yet safe from its scourging light.

I pull the cord once more. The bell’s reverberation ripples through my flesh and massages out the painful memories of my novitiate years. The acolyte’s pin – a chip of iron sharpened to a fine point – rests upon my lapel, and carries a weight that feels right. I wonder if Mum got my letter in time, and if she was listening at home, proud of her son.

With another wrench, the toll of the bell emerges in a brilliant peal, and the signs of life within the town emerge proper. I twist my head to watch the market square below. Miss Tilly pulls up the curtains on her tuber stall and, even from here, I can feel that smile of hers that makes it feel like there’s nobody else in the world but you.

I pull again, stifling a yawn as the effects of the overnight endeavour collide with my mind and body. The older acolytes always said to get a proper sleep the night before conducting the vigil. But I was still up past third-toll reciting the twilight prayer-cycle, hoping I wouldn’t forget it. And, as I feel my proud grin start to creep in, I know that I hadn’t.

I whip the cord a final time, and allow the bell to ring out as I let the braid slip from my hands. I stifle my smile and turn to walk back to my cushion upon the floor for the dawn prayer. The Cantor Superior’s eyebrows are raised upon his forehead, like a vein of quartz across his granite complexion. The acolyte’s mouth is agape, prayer unfinished. Too late, I realise my blunder.  There is silence in the Temple of Time, and a cry echoes to us from the town below:
“What time is it?!”