31. Sam Bindings
Sam: Bindings
Cuidar : One of the most common castings, used by mothers everywhere. The casting offers a protective veil that lasts a short time and, it must be stressed, only encompasses inanimate objects. But if the shoes, jacket, pants, and hat are protected, is not the child also?
—Euphemia Parra, Encantos de palabra (translation mine)
Enchantment of bone is bound to betray. Even when it would seem to do good. I must tell you one more thing from my own story—I must tell you about Corbin.
Consider it a lesson on the dangers of bone, and perhaps, too, on the proper uses of armor. Throckmorton and I have precious little in common, but we agree that armor is meant for one thing: travel in the realm.
On that first journey, the armor saved my life.
As I stood in the realm of the dead, intent on following the instructions given to me in the bottle, the lullaby faded and the currents grew stronger.
I gripped the blue rope beside me; then I walked and tugged myself forward.
The cable was slick with condensation, but I could gain no better purchase anywhere else.
My iron soles hit the smooth stones underfoot lightly, as if skimming the bottom of a lake.
Even in the turbulent air, the sturdy rope connecting me to the portal remained intact: flexible and fluid, unperturbed. I struggled on.
When I’d labored against the current for some time—perhaps it was five minutes, perhaps it was twenty—I heard a new sound behind the gentle roaring all around me.
At first I ignored it, hearing only a greater roar in a lower register.
But then it changed. I heard human voices, woven into the roar like a strand of red threaded through a black garment.
Were they really human voices? No, surely it was only the strange, placeless echoing that seemed to magnify sound in this vast realm.
Then, a sudden burst of clear sound, and I had no doubt: human voices, all groaning and crying in full lamentation, swallowed up by a churning roar and then bursting through again, like mourners standing beneath cascading ocean waves.
I stood still, holding the rope beside me with both hands, and in doing so I realized that the sound grew closer.
The roar, the wails, became immense. They came from somewhere above me, but I could see nothing.
A sense of feverish apprehension seized me.
I clung to the line and fought the desire to crouch against the ground.
Then: the fog above me separated, as if batted aside by the hand of a giant, and I saw a vast, brown shape, like the underside of a whale, that blotted out the light.
It was no whale. For the space of several seconds, before the roiling fog drew the curtain once more, I saw clearly a hundred long oars reaching and hauling, reaching and hauling, all in perfect synchrony.
I was looking at the underside of a ship that soared—for it moved through air—far above me, two hundred yards at least, carrying some unearthly load of lamentation to some unknown destination.
For all I knew, they had no destination.
Perhaps they followed the currents for all eternity, never stopping and never disembarking, only wailing and oaring forever.
I watched, awed and horrified, wondering about the ship’s passengers—or were they oarsmen?
—and then the currents hit me. The fog returned with a powerful surge, less like a substance and more like a being, the head of a dragon butting against me and knocking me off my feet.
My useless hands were flung from the cable, and I was tossed into the air.
Even my iron boots flailed, insufficient anchors against the mighty rush of mist.
But my rope held. The knots my father had taught me held.
I felt a sudden yank against my waist and thighs: the rope pulling taut as I fluttered, a paper bird on a string.
I had no strength to turn, to even move; I could only wait, and I felt sure that at any moment the rope I had looped onto the blue mooring line would break, and I would be tossed into the currents like the merest speck of sand.
Then, as abruptly as it had surged, the current drew back, relenting, and I collapsed onto the ground like a sack of stones.
I groaned with pain, for I had fallen hard, but I felt relief nonetheless. I pulled myself back to the blue mooring line, and I silently thanked my message-writer for giving me such wise counsel. Then I painfully got to my feet, put my hands on the cable, and labored on.
I am not sure how long it took, for after a while I ceased to think of time or destination and focused only on the worn rope before me, placing hand over hand, determined simply to go on because my exhaustion had narrowed my faculties.
In retrospect I know that I must not have gone far, for the rope that bound me to the portal couldn’t have stretched beyond a certain point.
But to me the journey seemed interminable.
Finally I pulled on the blue rope and felt not the loose, swaying motion I had felt all along but a tight, taut resistance.
I looked up. Six feet ahead of me, swaddled in fog, stood a stone hut.
Beside the doorway was a wooden post, to which my lifeline was tied.
And in the open doorway of the hut stood a man—a spirit.
He watched me approach and raised a hand in greeting.
“Sam,” he called. I hauled myself the last few feet and rested against the post, panting with exhaustion.
When I had recovered sufficiently, I looked at the spirit, who was waiting patiently.
I didn’t recognize him. He was middle-aged—old enough to be my father, though he wasn’t my father, of course.
And yet he had a similar gentleness. He had wide eyes, and a soft chin, and dimples as pronounced as a child’s.
While his hands were thick and rough—a workman’s hands—his shoes were finely crafted suede.
I couldn’t see anything of his clothes, for over them he wore a vast, tattered net, a web of knotted strings studded with stones.
He seemed at ease in the strange garment, as if he’d worn it all his life.
As I tried to catch my breath, he smiled sympathetically.
All about him was an air of kindliness that I found greatly reassuring.
Or perhaps I was simply exhausted.
When I’d caught my breath, I asked, “Did you leave me the note?”
“I did.”
“Thank you. Already you’ve saved my life. Though I’m well aware I may yet lose it.”
“I don’t think that will happen today,” he said gently. “I am Corbin,” he added, extending his hand.
I clasped it gratefully.
“Let’s untie you,” he said, reaching for the rope.
My legs were spent, but Corbin helped me step out of the loop that bound me to the blue mooring line.
“Come inside,” he said, urging me into the stone hut.
He disappeared through the doorway, and I followed him with leaden steps.
Inside, there were only more stones: four small boulders that might serve as seats.
Upon one of them sat a spirit, a young woman, with pale, pinched features and piercing eyes.
She also wore a garment like Corbin’s, an enveloping net of string and stone.
“This is Eva,” Corbin said, gesturing to the spirit.
“She’ll accompany you to serve as Pelham’s thew. ”
I sank onto one of the stone seats, and I observed with passing interest that my rope had gone slack, as if the currents outside had suddenly fallen still. “How is it you know about me and Pelham—all of it?” I asked, my breathing still labored. The words came with difficulty.
Corbin smiled. “It’s what we do, Sam. We watch the living.”
“But…why me?”
“We watch everyone.”
I shook my head. “But why…” I couldn’t finish the question. My breath wouldn’t come.
Corbin’s smile faded, replaced by concern. “You don’t have much time, Sam. I know you have questions, but they’ll have to wait. Come, Eva,” he said to the other spirit. She rose easily, the net of knots and stones causing no constraint, and walked to the doorway.
I got to my feet with reluctance. Exhaustion had penetrated my whole body, and I felt the sudden desire to stay on the stone seat, hard as it was, and sleep for a spell. I sat back down, sinking into the stone wall.
“Sam,” Corbin said, his voice urgent. “You’ve stayed too long. Your strength is fading. You need to leave.” He pulled me to my feet, dragging me forward, and I opened my eyes with difficulty. “You must not sleep, Sam,” Corbin said. “If you sleep, you’ll die.”
I forced my eyes open and saw that we were standing outside the stone hut.
Eva stood patiently beside the post, loosely tethered to the blue cable with a portion of her knotted net.
My thoughts were confused. I saw Corbin looping my own rope to the blue cable.
I heard Eva say, “I’ll get him there,” and I felt her hand on the small of my back, pushing me along.
My feet moved, but I had no strength to hold the cable.
Every now and then I felt the pressure of her hand again, and I heard her voice behind me.
“Keep moving, Sam. Only two hundred steps.”