The Ropewright

A gaunt puppet of its own rigging: knotted rope for sinew, pulley-blocks for joints, iron hooks for hands, hanging beneath the stair and stringing the only floor there is across the open drop. Cross, and you cross on his net; fight, and every swing lands in tarred hemp that catches and spends your blade. He is in no hurry. He hooks your belt and hauls you half over the rail so the next blow lands with the drop behind it, reels the mesh taut under your full weight, takes your sword-arm in a haul-line, and where you have laid stone to anchor yourself his hooks prise the courses loose for ballast: what you build, he unbuilds into counterweight. Then he pays out the slack. The drop underneath the net does the rest. It never mends the rope - when it is hurt it simply climbs its own line back into the dark above the lamp and comes down whole.