Chosen by the Bellkeeper

The bell of Tress rings once a century, and once a century it chooses a keeper by name. Iven has kept it twelve years — chosen young, and never sure he was the right man. This year the bell rang twice. A successor must be named, and only Iven can name one. He is the last person on the mountain who will agree. Sela runs salt through the pass and has one rule: never touch the bell-road. She broke it once, to help Iven, and now the snow has closed the pass and the bell is ringing a third time and a priest is coming up the mountain to pull the bell down. Sela will not be named. Iven cannot name himself. And under the bell-rope, in forty nights of argument, they have begun to want the same thing at last — which is the trouble with bells. A sweeping epic of a mountain that takes a century in a single night.