The Bell of Ashes

Overview

Some say it is a fable, meant to reinforce the Cainite mythology: "drink only blood and eat only ashes." Others believe that it is a miraculous Work of divine or infernal artifice. The most common rumors attribute its creation to the hands of either Saulot, or the first and most powerful among the Baali (or perhaps, as some daring souls insinuate, of both of these Cainites together). What is generally agreed upon is that the Well is nothing of the sort, being instead something more like a very deep cauldron, sculpted out of a single slab of roughhewn basalt, capable of restoring a Cainite to full mortality, perhaps even permanently.

Many tales circulate as to how, exactly, the Well works (should it even exist), though most of these stories seem fanciful and too good to be true. A number of Cainite scholars who have researched the lore of the Well exhaustively seem to believe in one particularly grim interpretation, involving the utter incineration of no fewer than one hundred children of Seth (over the course of weeks) within the Well, until it contains a large amount human ash. Some say that the ash must be rubbed into the skin, others believe that it must be mixed with blood to the consistency of stiff mud and set into a cocoon around the Cainite for a day and a night, and still others claim that a portion of it (though the size of the portion is debated) must be eaten. Whether those kine who are placed into the Well must be alive when they begin to burn, however, is a matter none can speak on with certainty.

References

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