From the shed behind our house in Saddle Street, I collected one of Father’s finest henequen ropes: the longest and sturdiest among them. In an Ipswich shop filled with decrepit antiques, I bought a mismatched suit of armor. It had no helmet, and almost every plate was dented. The shopkeeper, in a fit of conscience, reminded me that his items had no value as relics. I told him I didn’t mind. The steel boots easily weighed five pounds apiece.
On a moonless night I made my way to the portal. I asked the coach driver to drop me off a quarter mile from the Manse and to return in half an hour. He didn’t ask about my sack of clinking metal, and I could only hope that my tip was sufficient to buy his discretion. I was worried that the bejeweled owner of the Manse would have a guard stationed near the portal, and I was right: Decima. But the spirit thew must have seen my thoughts, for as I approached, she nodded and gestured into the woods. “You need the practice,” she said lightly.
At the door to the cottage, I donned the armor, struggling with the fastenings in the darkness. The length of rope I slung over my shoulder. I opened the portal door and stepped backward into it.
How different the manner of arrival, and how similar the sights as I arrived. The realm was unchanged. An impenetrable fog stretched out in all directions. The distant roar of waves sounded as before. This time, the minimal ease granted by relative familiarity allowed me to consider the place critically. I arrived not as a terrified errand boy, but as an explorer. Were those really waves roaring? Where did they come from? What would I see if I peered into one of the shed’s windows? Did the mist come from above or from beyond? Interesting as these questions were, I couldn’twaste time examining the atmosphere. I tied my line to the door’s handle. Then, with heavy steps, I made my way to the wooden post where I’d found Corbin’s note.
In recollecting my journey to the realm over several days, I’d come to see the wooden post and the cables strung to it as a crossroads. It had become clear to me, as it hadn’t been during my first, disoriented journey, that these sodden mooring lines of many colors each led to different destinations. The spirits no doubt followed them from one place to another, just as I had, holding fast to avoid being dragged by the currents. Did they all lead to stone huts? Or to grander destinations? Did they lead to other wooden posts, which in turn led to others?
Upon reaching the crossroads, I found, to my satisfaction, a glass jar with a note inside. This time, no melody accompanied the note. It read, simply:
SAM, RED LINE
Steeling myself for the journey, I looped the rope over the red line and around my waist and thighs, fashioning a harness that I had practiced more than once earlier that day. Then I began my slow progress across the stones, my armored feet clinking like a miner’s hammer in the echoing depths of a chasm.
To my surprise, this journey proved shorter than the last. Or perhaps coming better prepared made the journey seemed shorter. However it happened, I had only struggled through the fog for some few minutes when I came to the end of the red mooring line, where it wound tight around a thick wooden post beside a stone wall. More cables fanned out beyond the wall in a dozen directions. Corbin sat on the wall, wrapped in his stone-studded net, waiting for me.
When I reached him, he put out his hand to shake mine and smiled at my armor. “You’ve come prepared for battle,” he said.
“Only for survival,” I said wryly. “Any battles here I couldn’t win. Thank you for meeting me.”
“It was a good idea to come. You wanted answers before next time.”
“Yes. Anything you can tell me. I’m entirely at sea, and the enchanters know nothing.”
Corbin chuckled, the sound dim and muffled in the misty depths of the spirit realm. “That’s very true,” he acknowledged.
“Why did you help me?” I asked, diving in.
“Because I was like you once,” he replied. “I came here, under compulsion, to find a thew for another man. I succeeded only because I had help. And that spirit who helped me had, in turn, been aided in the same endeavor.”
I absorbed the significance of his words. “How long have enchanters been doing this?”
He nodded. “I don’t know when it began, but it was before my time.”
This astonished me. “Havenoneof them gained a thew for themselves?”
Corbin sighed. “Other enchanters outside the Society do try, and they often fail. Claiming a thew is a quest, and there are other gains to be made by questing. The story to tell, the legend to live with. But for Cisneros it’s all a business, just like any other, in which the disadvantaged man risks his life and the spoils go to the man with means.”
“How have they kept it a secret?”
“Not one of them has anything to gain from discovery, and all of us, the ropers, have everything to gain from staying quiet.”
“Ropers,” I repeated.
“That’s what we call ourselves. Those who come to the spirit world seeking thews for other men. Some of us have done it out of desperation for money. Some of us have done it to save a loved one in peril. None of us, I’d say, has done it freely. But we have done it by counting on the help of spirits here. Now, in turn, we help you.”
I shook my head, disbelieving. “But why? Why help them keep up this grotesque charade?”
Corbin smiled. He reached out to give me something, and as it fell in my palm, I saw that it was a stone. It had been carved, painstakingly, to make a thing of intricate beauty. My name appeared in the middle:SAM. Carved lines made ornate loops and flourishes all around my name, and looking closely, I realized that these, too, were writing: other men’s names, many of them, perhaps twenty or more. There, floating under my name like a lifeboat, was the name of the man in front of me: Corbin.
“We don’t do this for them,” Corbin said. “We do it for you. We may help enchanters, but that’s secondary; we’re here to help you. To make sure you don’t lose your life in the purchase of another man’s dreams.”
Comprehension settled upon me, as heavy as the stone in my hand. The thew was for another man, but the assistance was forme. The compassion Corbin extended was to sparemylife. I felt a wave of gratitude as powerful as the currents around me. “Thank you,” I said.
“We can’t travel beyond this wall,” Corbin said, acknowledging my thanks with a nod. “It’s the farthest point we spirits can come unaccompanied. Beyond the wall is the Weer—that expanse you have labored through, where the Oarings pass overhead and where we, the spirits, are susceptible to the scree.” He nodded at my questioning look. “Scree are creatures that pursueus in the Weer, but you need not fear them. They have no interest in living beings. The place we met last time, we call quarter-lodge. It’s inside the wall, easy for us to reach with thews. Whenever you come to the realm seeking a thew, go there. One of us will be there waiting.”
I nodded, realizing that with these arrangements in place my impossible task of finding thews for the Cisneros Society might prove possible. “How long will they ask this of me?” I wondered aloud, not because I thought Corbin could answer but because I couldn’t escape the question.
