The Pilgrims

an open door blasted freezing air and mist into the hall. Inside was a spacious chamber, and placed over its floor were many large lumps of blue ice. Shapes were frozen within each block and, if he didn’t know better — yes, there were people in the ice blocks, horned men, identical to that monster that had set itself on fire, back near the door. The chamber was full of them, all frozen solid, their eyes open. Were they alive or dead? He couldn’t tell.

A block of ice nearest the door had water running from it in little rivulets, slowly thawing. The war mage inside had its eyes pointed right at the doorway where Case stood. He shuddered then hurried away, soon as thoroughly lost as could be.

It was endless, this maze of hallways and arches and doors to secret chambers. When one passage branched off, winding upwards, Case followed its plush red carpet, recalling that Aziel had seemed to direct her mournful cries to a higher window. The top of the steps was guarded by sentries, heavily armed with shields and spears, but they didn’t react in the slightest as Case very carefully crept past them.

He found himself in a lofty hallway without the background sound of shuffling steps to shield his own. Tall glass windows double a man’s height were embedded at intervals down either side. Before each of these sat people taking careful notes on paper scrolls with pencils. The windows looked out, but Case assumed they were televisions or something similar, for they didn’t show the sky, nor the landscape he’d expect to see from this high up. The one nearest seemed to give the view from in the midst of a town; there were buildings in the background, and what might have been a pub. In the next window along, women in rags walked by a marketplace carting a wagon full of hay, which kept spilling out, and which a young boy kept trying to put back in.

Some of the windows showed grassy fields where nothing seemed to be happening at all, besides a little breeze. But the window-watchers stared at these just as avidly, taking as many notes as those monitoring the others. Case looked over their shoulders but couldn’t decipher anything … if he spoke their language now, he sure as shit couldn’t read it.

In another window was what looked like a big looming wall of glassy ice, its top too far above to see. In fact, many windows — Case counted thirty as he strolled along — viewed this looming wall, which seemed to stretch to the sky itself. It was either vastly long, or there were several of its kind, for some windows watched it from grassy plains, others from between the trees of a woodland, others from fields of dust and rubble. Before some of these were huge grey statues with round featureless faces, tall as buildings.

The views were so clear it looked as though one could step through the windows and go to wherever each place was. Every so often one of the note-takers touched a slab of rust-coloured stone set on tables before them, and the view of the window shifted left, right, or spun right around. Then they’d watch closely and take more notes.

The windows stretched as far ahead down the long hallway as Case could see. He didn’t bother to look closely at most of them — they all showed the same kind of stuff, seemingly random views of random places. Until, that was, he saw a window showing a busy road, with cars going past. He did a double take and went back. Cars? Trucks? And they weren’t alien cars either — that was a Ford! This was a city, a real city.

Over at the next window, there was a similar view. The same place, or a different city? There was a bridge that looked familiar, some well-known foreign landmark, but he couldn’t place it. A whole bunch of these windows were looking out at places in the real world. The window-watchers here were excited, as though each sight was a rare one, and they crowded three or four per window.

Case nearly took off his necklace again, just to ask one of these people what the hell they thought they were doing. It felt like he’d found someone trespassing in his yard. So they know about us, he thought, but we don’t know about them. That can’t be real good.

He also noticed that the view from these windows was blurry, and often quickly faded to darkness, like eyes closing now and then. A minute or so later, all the Earth-watching windows suddenly blinked out. The note-takers didn’t seem surprised, but sighed in disappointment, set down their pens, and waited for the windows to open again.

Something caught his eye — the strange woman, standing right there in the hallway, her wings spread wide, completely naked but for beads, similar to his, around her neck. She looked the way Case’s reflection had in the sad girl’s mirror: an outline, mostly transparent inside it. No one else looked her way, and two of those robe-wearing zombies walked right past her.

Her face hadn’t changed its expression: watching. She waved an arm, this way. Finally, a little help. But a second later she’d vanished completely.

When he passed where she’d been, her voice said quietly, ‘Do not speak. You are taking so long! Follow the wall as it curves around to the right. There is a large chamber, with swords crossed atop the door. Go in there. Do not remove your charm again. Try not to touch it at all. I cannot help further. A mage comes. I flee.’ There was a feeling of rushing air, something moving past very quickly. A few heads by the windows turned, disturbed, then went back to their notes. Then a nightmare stepped into the hall.

As the war mages had horns, so did this, but this thing’s were thicker, longer, and curled down to its shoulders. But it was otherwise unlike them. Its head was far too large for the rest of its body, and hung forwards, a heavy weight on its neck. A third horn came from atop its burn-scarred scalp, spiralling back behind its neck. One side of its face had a horribly melted look, as if it had been gouged from cooling wax. Set in that eye socket was a square, gleaming gem, which swivelled around as the thing surveyed the hall.

If it was a man, Case could not imagine an uglier one. Not even mangling the ‘normal’ half of its face would make it much worse. One hand held a tall forked staff of dull silver. The other hand, of the same side as the melted face, looked incapable of holding much at all — like the corresponding leg, it was blackened and shrivelled, withered to a thin claw, twitching and shaking. It was a wonder the knotted bone-thin leg held the beast’s weight as it limped down the hall.

It went right past Case, who flattened himself against the wall. Clack, clack, its forked silver staff banged into the ground, helping it along when it had to step on that withered, burned leg. A long mane of feathers dragged behind its head, trailing like a cape on the floor behind it.

Its head turned to look at the windows it passed. The robed servants did not look at it, nor did they tremble as it reached them the way Case would if such a thing could see him. They just kept taking their notes, watching their windows.

When the mage was some way down the hall, it stopped and turned back. Its human eye swept past the line of robed people, past the doorway, and lingered for just a second, or so Case thought, on the very spot where he stood. From such a monster as this came the civil voice of a learned, wise man: ‘Tell me. Who among you carries a charm?’

The row of window-watchers ceased taking notes and turned their heads. ‘Not I, Arch Mage.’

‘Nor I.’

‘Nor I, Arch Mage.’

Each of them denied it. The Arch Mage’s lips gave a twitch on the more human side of his face. He waited patiently until each window-watcher had spoken, which took several minutes, then said, ‘No one? No one here carries a charm?’

There was no answer. The window-watchers turned like robots back to their task. The Arch Mage’s gem-eye gleamed with light and turned in its socket, wrinkling the flesh around it as his huge head swept about, gazing up and down the hall.

‘No matter,’ he said at last, drumming his fingers on his staff. ‘Many functions, such things have. Many uses.’ It was hard to translate the expression of such a face, but the Arch Mage seemed lost in thought and troubled. Abruptly he turned and limped away, more hurriedly than he’d moved before, and no longer interested in the windows to either side.

Case shut his eyes, breathed deep, then decided he’d had enough of this place and these people. He wanted out of here right now, to go find a tavern somewhere and beg for a sample of the local ale. After all this, he’d dance and sing for it if need be.

He turned his walk to a jog, no longer mindful of the robed people he passed, knocking several of them aside and leaving a trail of them perplexed behind him. The Hall of Windows ended at last, turning into yet another corridor, much narrower. ‘Where’s Vous?’ Case yelled, grabbing the only grey-robe in sight by the scruff of the neck. ‘Your king or president or whatever the fuck he is. Where is he?’

The young man squinted ahead. ‘Is that you, Arch Mage?’