The sun peeked over the horizon, stretching its golden rays over the city. The sleepy city quickly came to life as bells echoed throughout the city and people left their cozy homes and entered the streets. Several children gathered around a fountain as a man with bright red hair began singing, coaxing them to listen.

"Morning in Paris, the city awakes, to the bells of Notre Dame. The fisherman fishes, the baker man bakes to the bells of Notre Dame. To the big bells as loud as the thunder, to the little bells soft as a psalm. And some say the soul of the city's the toll of the bells, the bells of Notre Dame."

"Listen," said the young man, "they're beautiful, no? So many colors of sound, so many changing moods, because you know, they don't ring all by themselves."

"They don't?" said a small boy.

"No, you silly boy. Up there, high, high in the dark bell tower, lives the mysterious bell ringer. Who is this creature?"

"Who?" said the children.

"What is he?"

"What?"

"How did he come to be there?"

"How?"

"Hush," the children settled down to listen, eyes full of wonder, "and Joker will tell you. It is a tale, a tale of a man and a monster…"

Dark was the night when our tale was begun on the docks near Notre Dame.

A small group of dark figures darted across from the shadows. They moved silently, save for occasional cries from a woman's arms.

"Shut it up will you?" snapped one of the men.

"We'll be spotted!"

"Hush little one," she whispered to her child.

Four frightened gypsies slid silently under the docks near Notre Dame.

"Four guilders for safe passage out of Paris," charged a man at the end of the docks. As the group rustled for coin, a dark man appeared from the shadows, flanked by guards.

But a trap had been laid for the gypsies, and they gazed up in fear and alarm at a figure whose clutches were iron as much as the bells.

"Judge Claude Faustus!" cried one of the gypsies.

The bells of Notre Dame.

Claude Faustus was the scourge of Paris. He had showed up in the city several years before, and things had never been the same since. Faustus, as judge, ruled the city's guards and seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere. Almost nothing happened in Paris without his knowledge. There was one group of people, however, whose movements were extremely difficult for Faustus to follow; rebels who wanted him gone. In the few years of his occupation of the city, numerous assassination attempts were made to oust him, all of which were stopped early in planning. All conspirators were swiftly…removed. Claude Faustus also forbid anyone except his closest guard from leaving the city.

Judge Claude Faustus longed to purge the world of vice and sin. And he saw corruption everywhere except within.

Faustus' eyes flashed red as he swept them over the small group. "Bring these gypsy vermin to the Palace of Justice." The men were immediately seized. One guard paused over the woman, tightly clutching a bundle to her chest.

"You there, what are you hiding?" he demanded.

"Stolen goods no doubt," said Faustus, "take them from her."

She ran.

The woman darted away from the guards and sprinted down the streets. Every time she looked behind her, Faustus seemed to be right behind her, without having a horse. She turned a corner and saw the church in front of her. Making a dash for it, she glanced once more and didn't see Faustus. With a final burst of speed, she reached the front doors and pounded on them desperately.

"Sanctuary, please give us sanctuary!"

The doors remained closed, and she turned to run again, only to run smack into Faustus. With a scream she tried to turn, but he grabbed at the bundle in her arms, catching it in his claw-like hands. The woman struggled to regain it, but with a final tug Faustus freed it from her grasp, sending her flying backwards. She stumbled and cracked her head on the steps, where she remained motionless. Faustus, without giving her a second glance, peered into the folds of his prize.

"A baby? ... A monster!"

Faustus searched for a solution to the horrifying thing in front of him. Finally his eyes found a nearby well and he raised the roll of cloth up to throw it in-

"Stop!" Cried the archdeacon. He came stumbling out of the church, a clumsily wrapped turban around his tousled white hair.

"This is an unholy demon, I'm sending it back to hell where it belongs," said Faustus.

"See there the innocent blood you have split, on the steps of Notre Dame?" Agni gestured to the poor woman's limp body, already forgotten by Faustus.

"I am guiltless. She ran, I pursued."

"Now you would add this child's blood to your guilt, on the steps of Notre Dame?"

"My conscious is clear!" he huffed.

Agni's eyes flashed. "You can lie to yourself and your minions. You can claim that you haven't a qualm. But you never can run from nor hide what you've done from the eyes, the very eyes of Notre Dame!"

And for one time in his life of power and control, Faustus felt a twinge of fear for his demonic soul.

"What must I do?" he pleaded.

"Care for the child and raise it as your own."

"What?" Faustus seethed. "I am to be settled with this, disfigured? ..." He thought about it for a moment, before turning back to Agni and handing him the child. "Very well, but let him live with you in your church."

"Live here? Where?"

"Anywhere. Just so he's kept locked away where no one else can see, the bell tower perhaps. And who knows, the lord works in mysterious ways." Faustus' eyes glowed red as he retreated back into the shadows and his words echoed. "Even this foul creature may yet prove one day to be of use to me."

And Faustus gave the child a cruel name, a name to forever point out his unfortunate condition…Snake…

Joker jumped up, startling the entranced children. "Now here is a riddle to guess if you can sing the bells of Notre Dame. Who is the monster and who is the man? Sing the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells of Notre Dame!"

In the background, the bells chimed as the children scattered, the young man with the red hair already long disappeared.