The Pilgrims

consultation with the fundamental forces holding all things together, to become for just that split moment a pattern streaked across the wind, which was for a private instant in conversation with the external reality paused around him, invited by the power the spell used, and by its carefully composed language, to share his private description; to make its described design — his private reality, made of no more than thought — part of wider reality, indifferent to thought, and adopted by whatever fundamental force had created and held aloft all the rest. Reality accepted the spell’s design as sound, and agreed the designs and effects were now real. Power rushed in. Used-up power whooshed out of him like coughed air.

For any mages nearby, the cast spell’s visible disturbance of force would be enormous. To say nothing of the burn of it through his body. Already the heat came strong, worse than it had been in practising, thanks to the weaker air (if it were much weaker, though, he would likely split apart like a struck melon). The charged wardens about his neck — rare items to come by, these days — had already absorbed more heat than would have killed him. And while they remained cool to the touch, that little part left over, which his body must endure, was already uncomfortably hot.

Now it began: glassy ripples of obscuring colourlessness puffed and bulged out from his feet, rising bit by bit into a large conical shape and rising like a great pillar of glass into the sky. It expanded and grew, in minutes shifting to adopt a humanoid shape. The colour of it turned basalt-grey.

Practising this spell had sent staff into panic, seeing a giant loose in the courtyard. The distant giant bought the illusion too; it moaned in displeasure as the new stoneflesh giant stood insolently close to its own sacred territory. The ground rumbled and shivered as great booming steps brought it over in an awkward swivelling run, legs stiff and unbending. The long misshaped fingers bunching into fists. Off to the east, the next-closest giant also turned to watch. From its mouth too came a warning like thunder at the sight of one giant already in its territory, and another fast approaching.

The Arch Mage backed close to the Wall. The plan had been to somehow lure the giant into a headlong charge. That was hoping for too much, it was now clear; the illusion was difficult enough to maintain in relaxed conditions, even with much detail and fine shading sacrificed. The real giant’s fist would, he hoped, swing around to pass through the illusory body like smoke, striking the Wall with force of a kind no man or machine in this world had yet at their disposal to employ. How many blows would it take — that was the next question.

So far so good: the real giant, now only metres away, bellowed, confused at the new one’s position. Battles for territory were not fought close to the Wall; that risked destruction of what they were here to guard! This new giant, it seemed, did not know the rules. The real arm and fist swooped through the air, seeming to move slowly. Through the illusory body it cannoned into the Wall with a blow that made the ground rumble.

The earth shook some more as the other giant off in the east made its charge. The Arch Mage stood calmly in the shaking ground between four moving pillars and remembered what he’d seen in those futures: it will succeed, it is ordained. The fists of two enraged stoneflesh giants pounded the same part of the Wall, sometimes battering together within the Arch Mage’s illusion.

Great cracks began to appear.

Stoneflesh giants further east and west began turning their heads at the distant racket, and they began to contemplate going over to investigate, for they felt the Wall behind them shiver.

66

Anfen did not watch the Arch Mage’s work. He had risen to his feet and headed back towards the road. His body ached and he was deliriously tired, but these were pains he welcomed. It had been a temptation to go and stand in the middle of the giants’ affray, be the death honourable or not, but then it had occurred to him precisely where he should go, and what he should do. Unless some peril claimed him on the road on his way there, as it was welcome to.

Behind him, the two enraged giants smashed their great fists through the illusion and into the breaking Wall. The Arch Mage willed them to hurry, knowing that while the Wall’s destruction might be ordained, his own surviving the event was a variable. At last a piece of wall suddenly fell away and, the entire structure reacting like a pane of glass, great cracks spread far and wide.

That is enough, the Arch Mage thought, and dropped the illusion, quickly hiding himself with another, far simpler spell. Even this simple spell’s heat threatened to tip him over the edge of endurance as he slunk away. Meanwhile the two confused giants now eyed each other off, pausing for just a moment to wonder what had become of the first enemy.

The Wall began to break from vibrations in the ground alone. When a stray stoneflesh arm fell upon it, more huge pieces fell away, revealing a sky on the other side. The Arch Mage eagerly watched, as his horns poured smoke into the air and his cooking body cooled itself.

Here, he knew, came some uncertain events … even, perhaps, some deadly perilous ones for all in Levaal. Every operation bore costs and objectives, and this one had many of both, whatever the unknowns. And for the first time in human history, though not for the first time, the far half of Levaal would stand bare to the other.

67

He walked through the night, past nervous villagers who gathered at the great dividing road and stared towards the Wall, where the immense booming sounded like the world itself being pounded to dust. The ground could be felt to shake a long way away.

When the first piece of wall broke off and fell, Anfen felt a rush of wind pass overhead, cold or hot from one instant to the next. Like most, Anfen could not see the glimmering shades of magic in the sky, so he did not see the rush of foreign magic force pouring into Levaal’s northern half, and he did not see the native magic pouring out. Nor did he see Arch Mage’s huge Engineer-built airships parked in the sky some way west, built specially to collect as much of the new force as they could, raw and crude before it mixed with Northern Levaal’s airs.

Nor did Anfen care any longer what might or might not happen, to him or the world. He finally understood how little he mattered, which was an enormous relief. All that mattered was the road he now had to walk. It would take some time. Now and then he would fall inert by the roadside, body simply refusing another step. He’d wake, find food, even if it was just a mouthful of leaves and roots, enough to keep him going to the destination he knew he deserved. Most he passed on the great dividing road, seeing the look in his eye, kept out of his way.

With the crowds of locals — some from nearby High Cliffs, some from as far afield as Tanton — Eric, Loup, and Siel watched with disbelief what seemed to be parts of the sky itself breaking off and falling down.

When clouds of foreign magic blew in through the higher gaps, Loup cursed loudly. ‘I ain’t going near any of that!’ he cried. ‘News to me, whatever it is, but I don’t like the look of it at all. I’ll be at Faifen, dead air or no. Away from the windows, mind.’ He turned his horse, riding it away at a gallop.

Through larger holes, the foreign sky beyond was revealed. As night fell, little could be discerned through it — there were glimpses of hazy red colour, like distant fires, but mostly just the gloom of night. ‘He did it,’ Siel said for the tenth time, her voice no less disbelieving.

Sharfy, from the window of his inn, said the very same thing. He was quite drunk with ale — had indeed spent a fine evening trading tales with an old High Cliffs veteran in the pub downstairs — but he knew he saw sights real enough. When a broken piece of wall landed in the inn’s yard, smashing down on a wagon parked out front, he quickly packed his things and rode north as fast as he could. He did not know: was this a victory for the Free World, or were they now caught in a vice crushing from north and south?

By the roadsides, camps of watchers became a common sight as people stared, mostly in silence, at a