Chapter 3 – Part II: The Chimes Beneath the Dust

Yusuf slept restlessly.

Under wraps of quiet, the broken rhythms of Varnhale throbbed at the back of his eyes. Whenever he closed them, he was witnessing the same circled gestures—hands paused mid-wave, lips half-parted mid-laugh, all of it eternally silent, all of it eternally looping.

He was up before the treacherous dawn broke—a pale silver glow behind the gray sky.

Kael dressed in a rush.

"Vault entrance beneath the amphitheater," he explained to them, testing the tension on the coil of his grappling hook. "Wherever there is an anchor hidden away, it will be there. The old chime-keepers used to call it the Chamber of Origin."

Yusuf stroked the Codex.

It pulsed in response.

The amphitheater was a cracked and ruined spiral bowl of defaced murals with arches surrounding it. They came through a half-buried passageway Kael had found years earlier, never making it far inside.

They descended tight stone steps, curving down between fractured resonators installed in the walls.

It was colder. And darker.

And there was something more.

A vibration—not sound, not really. More like the sensation of pressure in Yusuf's chest, just beneath his sternum.

"It's active," he breathed.

Kael did not respond. His eyes were locked on a gigantic round door in front, half-open, the bronze green with corrosion from age.

They passed through.

And into a world that still remembered how to scream.

Beyond the room was enormous and round, piled in tiers of giant, toppled bells. They were all cracked. They were all still.

And at the center—hovering above a carved dais—was a fragment of an old thing. A shard of the Bell of Origin, crude and woven with golden veins that glowed dimly.

The Codex shivered in Yusuf's hand.

"This is it," he said, moving forward.

Kael followed slowly, eyes scanning the walls.

Then something cracked beneath Yusuf's foot.

A soft, beautiful note resonated—infinitely loud in the silence.

Then it was gone.

"Trap," Kael said.

And the world twisted inward.

Yusuf stumbled away, sight stumbling. The chamber dissolved. Walls flashed past. Forms writhed.

He stood. somewhere else. A memory trap.

A false loop, constructed from half-remembered echoes.

He stood in Cairo. Or near-Cairo.

A market. But every vendor’s face was blank. The buildings were wrong. The sun hung too low.

He blinked. The world shifted.

Now he was in the museum. His desk. His nameplate.

But when he reached for it—his hand passed through.

Not real.
You’re being looped.
Fight it.

His fingers closed around the Codex.

Anchor me, he thought.

It pulsed—and reality snapped back.

He collapsed to the stone floor of the chamber, gasping.

Kael crouched beside him, face pale.

"You vanished for five minutes," he reported it. "Just blinked away."

Yusuf moaned.

"It looped me. Almost thought it."

"The deeper we go, the more echoes. That's why nobody's ever made it to the anchor yet."

They eyed the piece of the bell.

It hung still, golden veins paling now.

Yusuf moved forward.

He held the Codex and pressed it against the piece.

It reacted at once.

Fibers of golden light unspooled from the stone, floating like strands of hair in water.

Images overwhelmed his mind.

A towering spire.

A ritual.

Thousands gathered as the Bell of Origin tolled out, vibrating the memory of the city into a single harmony.

Then there was a countertone. A strange frequency.

The bell broke apart.

The soundwave ripped through the city like a tempest—invisible, unstoppable.

Memories broke apart. Language unraveled. Identity splintered.

The spire toppled.

The resonance chamber cut itself off.

And the city fell silent.

Yusuf staggered as the vision faded.

The Codex had stamped the memory—but not all of it. Something was amiss.

"We must have the other pieces," he said. "The ball was shattered."

Kael agreed.

"I know where one is."

He produced a folded map and spread it on the chamber floor.

I call it the Silent Square. City center. Completely gated off by wardens. But there's a spike in resonance there. I always thought it was just leftover noise. Maybe it's a shard."
Yusuf sighed.
"Then we go there next."

"Not on foot," Kael said. "We'll go up top. It's faster—and we'll draw less attention."

The way was treacherous.

Twisted catwalks and shattered bridges joined lolling buildings. They toiled fast, using Kael's climbing hooks and improvised pulleys. Yusuf came near falling twice but regained himself.

The city stretched below them in awful stillness—figures endlessly looping, streets trapped in ritual.

They had reached halfway when they were spotted.

A guardian turned its head and vanished.

"MOVE!" Kael yelled.

They fled.

Another guardian blinked into view above a building ahead of them—Yusuf nearly ran into it.

Kael hurled a tuned shard—a resonance grenade—and it detonated in rippling distortion. The guardian phased away, convulsing.

But there were others.

Three. Then five. Red scarves, bronze masks. Encircling.

Kael slammed Yusuf's shoulder.

"Jump!"

They leaped over a broken bridge as a guardian's baton smashed where Yusuf's head would have been.

They hit hard on the opposite ledge and rolled. Kael twisted an ankle but kept going.

They sprinted to a tower stairwell and wedged the door shut with a fallen beam.

"We have to divide," Kael panted. "They're following my energy. I'll divert them. I'll catch up to you."

"No—"

"I've done this before. I'll be fine. Get to the Square. I'll be there."
Before Yusuf could protest, Kael was already disappeared—leaping through a window and swinging off a rusty chain.

Yusuf stood alone, panting.

The Codex hummed.

The Silent Square was within grasp.

And the second bell fragment waited.