The shivering had stopped. Only the fire moved in his eyes now; otherwise, he was still. “A bell was ringing somewhere far away…. I rode after, over mountains, rivers, then a desert, until at last it brought me to a city, fast asleep in the sand. Alone, wandering, I came to the marketplace, where a tribe of old women appeared, surrounding me. They wore jackets sewn from scraps and on their heads were rags mortified by filth. But I was surprised; I knew these faces: the lips of my nurse, my mother’s eyes. I come from Syria, I said, Antiochus is my king, murdered by the Parni tyrant Phraates at Media. I fled east because we say Alexander founded a city there, and Fate led me here by a pealing of bells. I must return with an army to save my country. Help me, please. But the old women only giggled, flashing empty gums as they searched my pockets; finding nothing, they lost interest and made to leave. Following them through street after street of bleached and broken stone, I came to a tower in which hung a rusted iron bell. I cried out, seeing on it a face I knew like my father’s: Lizard-Killing Apollo, on whose marble feet Antiochus had bled a calf the morning of his death. The women went round and round, laughing and sparrowing in their mad argot, sometimes reaching for a bit of stone or wood fallen from the ceiling to strike the bell. They struck it like they laughed, in short, sharp reports that leapt to their end in the desert all around, when they would laugh all the louder, laugh and laugh, at city, desert, godhead, bell: hyeh, they laughed, striking, hyeh, yeh, yeh; and it rang, laughing, and rang.”
Lion Summerbell wrote this on the road from Madrid to Marseille. He'd like to credit that setting for the mythic tone, but aside from some decent mountains, there’re a lot more outlet malls and service stations than you’d think. Still, looks good on paper.
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