The Bell and the Blind
Book III of the Lightbearer Series
By A. Wambugu
❦ Chapter I: A Girl Without Sight
The rain did fall like silver strings, weaving the world in hush’d melody, as Elira wandered
eastward. The ground beneath her was unknown, for she had not travelled this far from
Eldervale in all her short years.
By twilight, she stumbled upon a hamlet hidden ‘neath fog and fern, a place nameless,
marked only by the sound of bells.
“No tower have we,” said a voice from within the mist, “and no one who rings it.”
An old man, blind and bent, emerged, and at his side — a girl, younger than Elira, her eyes
covered in linen white. Blind from birth, they said, yet she smiled with a knowing that
pierced deeper than vision.
Her name was Thalen. And she had been waiting for Elira.
❦ Chapter II: The Bell That Does Not Ring
At the village’s heart stood a bell — ancient, cracked, and chained.
“It rang once,” said Thalen, “long ago. When darkness first came.”
Elira approached it. The lamp at her hip glowed golden still, and when she drew near the bell,
it shimmered faintly in answer.
“Why do you hide it?” Elira asked the villagers.
“Because when it tolls,” murmured one, “people vanish.”
But Elira’s flame told her this was not death. It was calling. Summoning.
❦ Chapter III: The Girl Who Sees Without Eyes
Elira and Thalen walked the woods each eve, where strange voices whispered through the
branches. But Thalen heard more than Elira ever could — voices of the unseen, of angels, of
grief long buried.
“I see with spirit,” said Thalen. “Not with eyes.”
And one night, she touched Elira’s lamp and wept.
“Your light... it is breaking.”
Elira said nothing, but her heart thundered. For she too had noticed: every truth revealed
made her light flicker more.
❦ Chapter IV: The Lost Bellringer
A hidden stair beneath the chapel ruins led down, down into a crypt of cold stone and silent
echoes.
There, they found the skeleton of a young man, still clutching a small silver bell.
“He was the Bellringer,” said Thalen softly.
Upon the wall, carved in shaking hand:
“I rang the bell. I saw the path. I followed it. If you come after me, be certain you are not
afraid of losing your eyes.”
❦ Chapter V: The Trial of the Blind
That night, Elira dreamt she too was blind. Her lamp gave no light. Her feet knew not the
path.
And a voice — like thunder, yet gentle — spake from the dark:
“Wouldst thou follow Me if thou couldst not see?”
She fell to her knees, weeping, whispering, “Yes, Lord... but I am afraid.”
Then, the voice replied:
“Faith doth not require sight. Only surrender.”
❦ Chapter VI: The Bell Rings Again
At dawn, Elira and Thalen climbed the tower.
Elira placed her hand upon the cracked bell and raised her lamp. Thalen, though blind,
reached too.
Together, they rang it.
The sound was no sound — it was a light, a wave of pure feeling that swept through the
village, lifting the fog and silence like a curtain drawn back from a stage.
One by one, the villagers fell to their knees. And as the echoes faded, those who had
vanished began to return.
Elira’s lamp flared.
And then… flickered low.
❦ Chapter VII: The Light Within
Elira, pale and trembling, turned to Thalen.
“My lamp grows dim,” she whispered.
“Because you are becoming it,” said Thalen, placing a hand to her chest. “The light is no
longer in the flame. It is in you.”
Suddenly, Elira understood.
The trials were not about the lamp. They were shaping her into one who could bear light
herself.
❦ Chapter VIII: The Path Beyond
Elira left the village at dawn, and Thalen did not follow — but she placed something into
Elira’s hand:
A bell. Whole. Untarnished.
“Ring it,” said Thalen, “when you are lost, and you shall hear not where to go… but whom to
trust.”
Elira turned her face eastward.
The sky broke with golden fire.
And for the first time since the Chalice, her light did not flicker.
✧ Finis ✧
A final note to thee, gentle reader:
Faith is not the absence of darkness,
but the courage to walk blind,
with trust in the One who sees all.
