Gas-a-ho was poking in the brambles. “Something is very wrong with Looks-at-Clouds,” he said. “Or at least, Irene and I think so.” He found an arrow, and then another, and then a third, and Aneas, obediently, slid them into his father’s quiver.

Gas-a-ho was deep in the brambles by then.

“That should all be pine needles and rocks,” Aneas said. “There are no . . .”

“There’s a trail,” Gas-a-ho said.

Aneas followed the shaman. He was aware, at some remove, that what they were doing was very dangerous.

The trail was far longer than it should have been, winding in and out of the brambles and crossing a small rivulet that seemed as brown as old blood. Aneas knew that his whole memory forest was not this big, and he knew, too, that all around them was very dark. He wanted to find his clear spring and his casting stone, and they were hidden.

“I am afraid,” Aneas said. “I cannot cast.”

The shaman turned. “Yes,” he said. “That is natural. But this is the thing for which I trained: to take people on spirit journeys. You were dead. Things have changed in here. You need to find whatever the trail wants you to find.”

They walked on, and the darkness pressed in, so that Aneas feared to raise his eyes above the muddy brown trail.

The brambles kept catching on his hands, until both of them were bleeding. The blood fell on the trail. The trail was soaked in blood.

“Spirit journeys are mostly safe for the young and inexperienced,” Gas-a-ho said. “The older you are and the more you have seen, the more dangerous these places are.”

The shaman paused. “I think this is as far as I go,” he said. He smiled, and for a moment, the smile and the man’s confidence warmed Aneas.

“Whatever awaits will be horrible,” the shaman said. “This isn’t some nice name quest where you find a turtle or a hawk. But we need you back; and whatever it is, you can deal with it. That I promise. Remember it’s only you. Only you.”

The shaman stepped back. The trail had become squelchy underfoot, and the shaman’s bare feet were red in the unreal light. They were in a fetid swamp, not a marsh now; and the swamp was a swamp of blood.

Aneas stepped past him, and walked on.

It wasn’t far.

He emerged into the clearing, and it was and was not his casting sanctum. The rock was the same; the tree, which seemed miles behind them, was there, although somehow they had come upon the pool from another direction. The tree was full of lichen, and now seemed dead.

The pool couldn’t be seen, because it was full of corpses.