The Pilgrims

3

Though it goes by another name there, the game of chess came into Levaal with one early group of human Pilgrims from Otherworld. They brought other things with them too — the way days and hours are measured, systems of numbers, measurements and more, all gladly adopted (for some reason) by the cities and temples. They brought seeds of plant and vegetable, which have grown here and thrived. Also species of bird and beast, including the very useful horses and dogs. Weapons too: bows and arrows, plate and chain mail, kinds of blades until then unknown here. And chess, chequers and backgammon, as well as other fine games.

The Arch Mage sits in his tower; light comes thinly through the high window and falls upon his half-melted face. Magic is not kind to those who use it, and it is hard to tell, looking at the Arch Mage, how gently he has been treated considering the vast amount of power that has gone through his ancient, ruined body. About his study are parchments on stands, with ink scrawled across them in writings nearly incomprehensible, even to him. These are composed spells in progress. Most are far too ambitious to ever be cast or attempted: a mere hobby, the way an alchemist might play with poisons. A homesick drake scratches about at the floor of its cage, the deep red shine completely gone from its scales, the flame dead in its throat as it waits to see what use its captor has for it, other than the pleasure of possessing such a rare creature — and the occasional extraction of its blood. There are jars filled with what appear to be smoky curls of coloured mist, which are rare power types found only here, in the castle’s inner airs: purified and concentrated thus, they are priceless. If destruction were to come to this room, it would be these jars the Arch Mage would run to, out of all his charms and treasures, to clutch to his chest as he fled.

Not that he wouldn’t mourn the loss of the old tomes lining the shelves in their hundreds. Possession of these books was once the cause of feuds and almost outright wars between the old schools of magic. Even the Arch Mage battles to comprehend some of the grave secrets written therein. He is occasionally saddened it was necessary to kill off the world’s major magicians … it would be nice to ask their thoughts. Then again, it was nice to pluck each tome from the smashed safe or chest of its ruined temple.

The Arch Mage views through the window glass the world he knows: Levaal, which is his chess board. He beholds its pieces, many of which are still stubbornly arrayed against him. Other pieces move indifferently, ignoring the human opponents facing off, trampling as they like across the squares while all others duck aside, waiting for them to pass.

Many old, mighty pieces — the five schools of magic, the half-giants, and more — have long been knocked off the board, for they were great threats to the Project. Their removal was difficult, perhaps the Arch Mage’s greatest accomplishment.

The Great Spirits are a different matter. They simply have limited interest in the games and affairs of humans, or so history claims. Which is not to say their presence doesn’t make the Arch Mage nervous, and take up large portions of his thought; the Project after all is about creating a Great Spirit from a man and perhaps, one day, facing off against the others. That will be a new game altogether.

Still, the Arch Mage has almost won the game in progress, the game of human rule and control. The six remaining Free Cities are his opponents, and they are in a very bad position — worse, it seems, than they themselves know. They do not yet know of Tormentors from beyond World’s End, but they soon shall. In months, another of the Free Cities may well fall and become Aligned with the castle. The rest will follow. To speed the process up would be pleasing.

The drake gives up its scratching on the cage floor and falls asleep. With a sigh, the Arch Mage reflects on the day’s events, and realises Vous no longer plays the same game as he does. No longer pondering moves by his side, now Vous is a piece on the board, a piece moving in its own directions, with no care where he, the Arch Mage, wishes to place it.

The Strategists, after today, have realised it too. What distresses them is not what happened to the peasants, of course; they themselves, like the Arch Mage, have given orders resulting in far more deaths than today’s, and they shed no more tears for peasants than they would for culled livestock or felled trees. Rather, what disquiets is the fire of their Lord’s personality spreading too wide, too quickly. Being close to it, they are perhaps right to worry.

The Arch Mage wonders how a more gentle, timid man would have fared in Vous’s place at this stage of the Project. And he begins to wish he had such a man on the throne now.

In the far distance, he sees the spiralling, winding thread of disturbed magic going skywards like a wavy line drawn in pencil across the white sky, indicating a powerful spell has been cast that way. A war mage, most likely; he does not concern himself with it. More troubling to him is the speck flying towards the clouds, then gone. It is an Invia, surely off to visit the dragonyouth in their sky prisons. They are pieces on the board he doesn’t know well.

Other Invia have lingered in the air behind the castle for some days now. What interests them here? A possibility disturbs his thoughts and demands to be examined, however unlikely: when people come through into Levaal from Otherworld, the entry point is behind the castle.

The thought is new, and troubling, and connects immediately with another: one of the Strategists claims that Vous was in that valley himself some days ago, walking with his head bowed, hands clasped behind his back. That Vous has left the upper floors at all, much less the castle, is very strange. And the Arch Mage has felt himself the pull from those strange rippling effects, like blind groping tentacles reaching for that spot, for the entry point …

Otherworld. People from that mysterious place are not wanted on the Arch Mage’s board, where already there are too many free and mighty pieces beyond his hand. From the Hall of Windows he has glimpsed their world and what he has seen disturbs him. They command no traditional magic, it appears, but much machinery that looks magical. He has seen weaponry that left him sleepless for days with fear and desire. He has seen pillars of flame beneath enormous clouds shaped like mushrooms, and wondered if he were dreaming.

To open the gap between worlds is high, high magic; a human would not survive even a failed attempt at it. But Vous is not human any more. The Arch Mage pictures him lurking near the entry point in that high green valley. It is likely that Vous doesn’t even have a reason for being there; he is under the influence of much more than his scattered human brain. The Arch Mage thinks: Not a user of magic, a force of magic, and his worry grows.

In chess, you cannot take your own pieces off the board, only invite your opponent to do so. His opponents — the Free Cities — have not wits or will left among them to take Vous away, and leave room for a new, more suitable replacement. The Arch Mage himself dares not try it. The only way it can be done is by Vous’s own choosing.

The sky’s lightstones begin to fade. The Arch Mage thinks long into the night, but just two things keep seizing his thoughts. He summons a war mage, sends it to guard the high valley behind the castle and orders it to kill everything that comes through, for the entry point is one thing his thoughts linger on. The other, about which he has less certainty, is the word ‘shadow’.