The Spirit Realm

The sun woke Taylor early, and for the first time in over a week, he did his usual morning exercises before settling in for a large breakfast. As he waited for the sun to climb higher, he took a notebook from his bag and tried to sort through all the thoughts crowding his head.

As far as he could tell, this place shared the same sky as Aarden: same sun, same moon (only one on this world), and the same stars. It was too big for a mere pocket dimension, and he doubted it was a separate plane of existence. He would have assumed he had found a remote section of river, but for the rich mana and strange population. The realm was a puzzle.

The spirit realm had a name: Maltemali. Or Voralen, Cerulea, or Twilight, depending on which author he chose to believe. The greater spirits created it to be a retreat and refuge for their kind. Or it was made by heroes. Or it had always been here. About half of his sources claimed Maltemali was where summoned creatures came from, half claimed it was folklore, and one self-declared expert claimed it was heaven. The same collection of experts variously believed that spirit beings were ghosts, living mana, souls waiting for reincarnation, accidental automata, or something else entirely.

There were a few ideas they all agreed on. One, there were powerful spirits in Maltemali who protected their territories and the lesser spirits who lived in them. Two, the realm's geography was a smaller, distorted version of the everyday world, touching it in many places, enabling spirits to come and go between worlds. And three, the only mortals who could enter or leave the realm without assistance had ultra-rare spirit-aligned mana.

Taylor had once emphatically denied the existence of mana "attributes" to Curator Jane. Other worlds believed in similar concepts, but their theories never held together very well, so he had long believed that all mana was the same. But his confidence in that theory had cracked during the investiture of Erstdwerg. He had sensed something different, and he felt it again when he made a figure of Shitukan for Nelis.

The fact that he had fallen into the realm without meaning to was more evidence in favor of the "special mana" theory. If just anyone with enough mana could open the way to Maltemali, there would be signs posted downriver saying, "Warning: Spirit Realm Ahead. Keep your mana to yourself," so people like him wouldn't sail blithely through the transition zone with all their power unfurled, having a good time. Spirits would keep watch for intruders. Mortals would gather around the pathways so they could exploit the realm. Since none of those things were happening, people crossing over was probably a rare event.

Then there was the issue with the locals' behavior. The creatures last night were mischievous and thieving, but not hostile. The fox should have attacked him or run away, but instead, it chose to get closer and beg for food. It even thanked him! In all his life, nobody had ever said anything nice to him while looking at his naked face. If his mana was strange in some way, could that explain why humans, beastkin, animals, and spirits reacted so differently to his curse? Was he cursed? Or was his mana too strange for most people?

The prospect of being wrong about his "superior" knowledge galled him, but something was going on, and he knew he didn't understand it. And the thought that it might lead to answers about his curse made it his most important research topic.

Taylor had been in the spirit realm for all of twelve hours, and it was making him question everything. By the time the sun was fully clear of the hills, he had several pages of notes, questions, and research ideas. The possibilities for his curse were especially exciting, raising unreasonable hopes that sprang from his heart like mushrooms. Every time he looked, there were more he needed to quash. He circled "curse" in his notebook and wrote "more data, less hope" next to it in thick letters.

When he returned to the water, he put on a mask. The idea of showing his face to strangers made him intensely uncomfortable, even if he didn't need it here. Anyway, it was better to be considered odd than risk creating an altercation, either from his curse or from being a human. For the same reason, he left his sword in his satchel, even though the spirits might think he was defenseless. His goals for the day were to avoid confrontations, find an exit, and return to Aarden. If his sources were correct about Maltemali's geography, then maybe he could find an exit near Bostkirk by sailing upriver.

Two more wide loops up the river brought him to an unexpected view. On the inside of the loop, the ground rose gently from the water to neatly segmented plots of garden. Several large animals worked the rows, loading vegetables into reed baskets they carried on their backs. Taylor saw a black bear, some raccoons, and a massive cat-like thing with purple stripes and a bushy tail. They weren't beaskin; they were full-on beasts, dressed in linen tunics dyed blue with woad and standing on their hind legs. There were humanoid figures, too. He couldn't see them well from the center of the river, but some of their proportions were odd, like they were approximating people instead of pretending to be them.

The opposite bank was a fifteen-foot cliff, crowned by a line of single-story buildings. Some had open windows looking over the cliff, and Taylor could spy spirits, humanoid and otherwise, going back and forth inside the buildings. A few lounged at their windows, enjoying the scenery. One was unmistakably smoking: It stuck a long item in its mouth, a red coal flared, and it breathed out a long plume of yellow smoke to drift over the river. He had never seen anyone in Aarden smoke.

As the loop turned on itself, Taylor was confronted by four stone arches supporting a wooden platform across the river. The top of the bridge was lacquered red, with gate-like arches inviting pedestrians to cross. Dozens of spirit people (some of them so insubstantial he could see through them) crossed back and forth. His boat was small enough to pass under the bridge, but there was a problem: Someone had erected a wooden fence at water level. It wasn't very tall and didn't go very deep, so its intent was clearly to stop river traffic. Taylor furled his sail, eased his boat toward the obvious gate, and held it there against the current.

"Hello!" He called up to the bridge in Arcaic. "Can someone open the gate, please?"

A frog in a patterned robe appeared at the bridge's railing. He was wearing an iron cap whose brim rested against his bulgy eyes, and he held a spear. "You have to pay the gate toll."

"Is this enough?" Taylor held up a small silver coin, enough for a decent meal. It was overpaying for his minuscule craft, but if it got him through without delay, then he'd pay it.

"Silver! Real silver!" The frog's eyes bulged even more. Then, he got control of himself. "Ahem. That's not nearly enough, traveler. The price here is one thousand silver."

"One thousand!? That's too much! This boat is tiny!"

"But the effort to open the gate is the same. I'll give you a break, and only charge nine hundred, since you're new here."

Taylor suspected he was guarding the gate for himself, and not on behalf of anyone else. He put away the silver coin and dug some small change out of his purse. "My new offer is this. Take it or leave it."

"You can't counter with less! It doesn't work that way!" Most spirit people gathered at the railing to watch the frog and the masked traveler. Miniature stick figures marched along one of the arches and sat in a line, kicking their legs over the drop. It was impossible to tell if the tiny wooden people understood what was going on or if they simply enjoyed the commotion.

Taylor dropped two of the least valuable coins back into his purse. "Now my offer is this much."

"No!" The gate-frog's wail sounded like a toddler who just dropped his ice cream on a hot sidewalk. "You're not bargaining in good faith!"

"And you think demanding a thousand pieces of silver is good faith?" The watching spirits tittered and chortled as he removed another coin. "You'll get nothing at all, at this rate."

"You can't be this high-handed with me! I'm up here. You're down there. You don't go anywhere if I don't say so!" He jabbed his spear in Taylor's direction for emphasis.

"I see." He put his money away, turned his boat around, and let the current take him downstream to where there was a low, pebbly shore. He landed his craft, lashed the boom, tiller, and daggerboard, and hefted the little vessel over his head. It wasn't heavy, not if he used body enhancements, and a spell let his hands grip the wide wooden hull without slipping. It was cumbersome and top-heavy, but that didn't bother him if it let him get around the avaricious gate-frog. He found a path that took him along the river and toward the bridge.

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Many spectators were waiting for him, but only one obstacle, and that was the iron-capped amphibian and his spear. The armed spirit stood squarely in the intersection between the riverside path and the wider road that crossed the bridge. Expectant watchers ringed the crossing. Many of the humanoid ones wore elaborate robes embroidered with flowers or natural scenery, and used hand-held paper fans to obscure their faces beneath inhuman eyes. The animal spirits (he noticed six different varieties) wore simpler blue garb, and the plant spirits were entirely naked. The ghostly ones were indeterminate in both clothing and gender.

"I want my gate fee!" The spear jabbed threateningly in Taylor's general direction.

"For what? You never opened the gate."

"You have gold on you. I can smell it! I want some!" The spear's tip was shaking, but the frog couldn't relent. His desire for money so far outstripped his sense of self-preservation that he came within lunging distance.

"Fool." Taylor felt his voice grow cold. "I'll have your skin for a coin purse."

With a wordless Slice, Taylor cleaved the cheap spear just below the socket where the metal tip joined the wooden shaft. The point fell heavily to the ground with a clang. Froggy's eyes bulged again, and his whole body shook in terror, yet he refused to move. He couldn't move.

Taylor carried his boat around the terrified amphibian and approached the clutch of well-dressed humanoids who hid their faces behind paper fans. They had feminine shapes, so that's how he addressed them.

"Pardon me, ladies, but could any of you tell me where the nearest exit is to Aarden?"

A spirit in an indigo silk robe spoke to him. "There's a canal lock a mile or so upriver. It's a little hidden, but you can't miss it if you follow your nose. But why are you in such a hurry, traveler?"

"You could stay a while," invited a pink-robed lady, "and visit the resort. All the great spirits visit, but we haven't seen you before." Flirtatious titterings erupted from the group. He looked across the bridge, and there was indeed a large building on the other side of the river. Eight stories of elaborate wooden balconies, windows, and roofwork stood proudly on a slight hill, squared off by a heavy stone foundation.

"Wow." It was the tallest building he'd seen yet in Aarden.

"We have everything there," said another of the 'women'. She leaned close enough to whisper in his ear. "Everything."

It was the kind of invitation pitched to raise a prospective visitor's blood pressure. In Taylor's case, it made him intensely curious. What did spirit beings do? Did they have sex, or was there something else they did for thrills? If they were born from mana, did they have anatomy? The healer in him demanded to know.

"Maybe next time," he mused aloud, "now that I know it's here. It would be a shame not to explore it soon."

"Why wait?" cried the indigo one, "when you could play with us right now?" Happy voices raised all around her in agreement.

But he shouldn't right now. Couldn't. The most important thing was getting back to the normal world and finding out if he could move back and forth freely. He didn't just want to explore the resort, but everything nearby. He should wait to indulge his curiosity when he didn't have to rush things.

"Sorry, ladies. Now is not the time." A chorus of disappointment rose from the group as he denied them again. "Thanks for the directions!" He jogged along the river to the next spot where he could put in his boat and raise sail. He didn't dare look back, lest the myriad of new life forms pull him from his purpose.

Behind him, the forgotten frog soldier finally collapsed into a nervous heap.

With mana unfurled and his senses spread wide, he moved more sedately than yesterday's reckless race, feeling for spatial anomalies as he went. The barker women told him to follow his nose, so maybe smell was important, too. If he went more than two miles, he'd have to consider turning back and asking for a guide.

He was nearly through the next bend in the river when he realized he had a follower. It was at the edge of his detection range: a long, sinuous form, like an eel or snake, wider around than he was, lurking underwater. It kept pace with him, neither falling behind nor closing in, even when he changed speed. A huge resort implied order and governance, and his books claimed powerful spirits protected the weaker ones. Maybe this was one of the greater spirits, or someone sent by them to ensure he left without causing trouble.

The entrance to the canal revealed itself by the trickle of otherness leaking from its raised lock. From Maltemali, he could smell stale water, metal, stone dust, the sweat of thousands, and hints of warm garbage from an Aarden city. As he drew closer, Taylor could sense the warped space around the water lock.

At first, he was going to work the gates himself, float his little boat up to canal level, and sail out. But, assuming he could get the rusted machinery to work, that would mean running Aarden water into the realm, and he didn't know how spirits would feel about it. Instead, he pulled ashore, cleaned and dried his boat thoroughly, took down the mast, and lashed everything in place. Then, he stowed it carefully in his satchel, squeezing it gently through the space-morphing mouth of his bag while attempting to avoid the stacks of books. He was mostly successful.

The follower was still hanging back, concealed by the river, watching him. On the theory that not-an-enemy also meant potentially-a-friend, Taylor made a plate of food piled high with fruit and delicacies from Nelis's larder and left it near the canal lock. Hopefully, the follower would understand his message.

Taylor climbed the stairs to the next level of the lock and cautiously paced forward on a path fronting the canal, feeling for the line between two worlds. He knew he had found it when the sky darkened around him as if he were in a tunnel. Behind him lay a circle of light and the rusty old lock gate. Before him lay a vision of a working lock, filling to lift a barge. Draft horses waited on the road beside the canal, ready to pull the heavily laden vessel once it reached the right level.

He didn't cross right away, but took his time to study the tunnel between two worlds and the way it twisted space. He walked a little farther, drew in his mana, and he was suddenly in Aarden. When he flooded the space around him with mana, he was in the tunnel again. He could call and dismiss the passage with ease.

On the Maltemali side, he was surrounded by humid forests. In Aarden, he stood across the river from the governor's palace, with all of Bostkirk spread around it. The gods had told him there were other ways to use space magic for rapid travel, and he had just found one. The journey should have taken him three days, yet he completed it in one. True, he would have arrived sooner if he had caught the train, but it was quicker than any mundane transportation. He made a note of the lock number so he could find the tunnel again.

Choosing to stay in Aarden, Taylor backtracked a mile downriver to a bridge that let him enter the city, aiming for Quomorong Station. He had just passed through the gates when he remembered his tablet. It didn't work outside of Estfold, and he was a day late returning, which meant Curator Jane might be wondering where he was. As soon as it was fed with mana, the tablet bonged at him insistently. Most of the activity was on the Midway channel. A detachment of troops was coming home from Grisham's Wall, and that set off a flurry of arrangements. Hopefully, Kistur wouldn't be among them. He could stay at the wall and fight monsters for the rest of his life, as far as Taylor was concerned.

Half a dozen tabs had unread messages, but he only cared about the one for Mourne. Mixed in with the standard traffic between Jane and the town wardens, there were messages for him.

Bilius, I know you're unreachable right now, but contact me as soon as you get this. It's important.

Bilius, you're late. Message me as soon as you get this.

Bilius! Contact me!

The last message was from an hour ago. Now that he thought about it, he'd done something stupid. He should have posted a letter to Mourne before taking his impromptu vacation. If he hadn't stumbled into the spirit realm, he could have been gone for several extra days before he crossed the border into Estfold.

He found a quiet shop that sold hot scones and mint tea, and prepared himself for bad news, a scolding, or both. After he was preemptively soothed, he put his thumb on the tablet and thought words at it.

Legate-X: There was an issue with the train, but I'm in Bostkirk now. What's going on?

Curator-J: Is everything all right? Are you okay?

Legate-X: I'm fine. Maestro Nelis accepted Alexis, and they're both happy with the arrangement.

Curator-J: That's incredible! How did you manage it?

Legate-X: I'll fill you in when I get home. If I had a class, I would have leveled on side-quests.

Legate-X: So. What's the big emergency?

There was a long pause, which was very unlike Jane. The longer he waited, the more he thought about all the bad things that could have happened. Did Kasper get hurt? Was there a fire in the village? Was there something wrong with the new machinery they spent so much money on?

It was none of those things.

Curator-J: Your father is home.

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