The Pilgrims

49

There were six Free Cities, yet seven Mayors sat around the crescent-shaped table, in a discreet cabin built beyond the noise of the Bazaar’s dinnertime bustle far below. Discreet was important with so many prominent targets gathered in one place. The city’s lights burned bright outside the high window, stretching further than the eye could see. Plates of delicacies were laid on the table before the Mayors, mostly ignored. After weeks of rabbit stew, jerky, foraged roots and other such fare, Anfen had a powerful urge to walk over and crudely stuff his face with the cold meats, cheeses and berries.

It took him a moment to comprehend why seven Mayors were here: ludicrously, the ‘scattered peoples’ had finally gained a vote in Council affairs. At least the man was not introduced as a Mayor; rather, as ‘spokesman’ for a couple of millions spread across vast distances, from little groups of nomad wanderers to the large fishing villages about the Godstears, themselves not far from status as city-states in their own right. To top it off, the spokesman came from High Cliffs, which already had its Mayor at the table. Anfen did not show his displeasure at this idiocy, for inter-city politics was not his trade, but he thought he sensed similar displeasure in a couple of the Mayors when the ‘spokesman’ was introduced.

All the other faces he knew, bar one. Tsith had sent their Mayor’s advisor, not their Mayor, doubtless another sore point for those about the crescent-shaped table. And another obstacle for Anfen, if this matter went to vote; a Mayor’s advisor could not commit his city to something as extreme as destroying the Wall at World’s End. It may be your Mayor is too old and ill to make the journey here, Anfen thought angrily. That means it’s time for your city to get a new Mayor.

The Tormentor’s arm was in a bag by Anfen’s feet. A few curious eyes turned to it and invited explanation, even as they waffled on through pointless formalities. He sat heavily on his chair well before they’d finished, a slight breach of protocol earning him a sternly cleared throat from the Mayor of Faifen. If she begins to swoop around the room like an Invia, consider me chastised, he thought sourly.

‘A long journey?’ said Ilgresi, Elvury’s Mayor. A smile creased his cheeks, though his eyes, black and blind as two rocks, showed nothing.

‘I thought we could cut through some of the-’ he’d almost said nonsense ‘-niceties, given the forces building up on your doorstep, Mayor.’

‘Ah yes. Have you been informed of the latest?’ said Ilgresi, smiling with real mirth. Anfen wished the man wouldn’t, for his teeth were metal and as black as his eyes.

‘No, but I saw the build-up on my way here, some hours ago. Ten thousand, I’d have guessed it.’

‘A siege, you’d have thought?’ said the Mayor.

‘But for the lack of artillery, yes.’

‘And the lack of force at our southern gate! But it may be they mean to send some there. After all, they asked us for passage.’

Anfen blinked. ‘Ridiculous. Passage to where?’

‘Ah, that’s what they do not wish to tell us! They have asked us — their messenger straight-faced — to allow them through the pass, then through the eastern roads skirting the city walls. Which, as It wills, gives them access to our southern gate.’

‘What do you think of this?’ said Liha, leaning towards him. The Mayor of Faifen, she was the only woman present.

‘I don’t know what to think,’ Anfen answered, knowing full well they’d have had every angle of this discussed already with their best and brightest — why bother asking him, unless there was some implied test of loyalty or competence in it? ‘It could be the request was to buy time, or they’re overstocked with soldiers and wish to cull some on a suicidal mission, and measure your strength into the bargain.’

‘It would also make veterans of our forces,’ said Ilgresi, shrugging: let them. ‘Our army is a young one. It would be good for them.’

Anfen groaned inside. Good for them, to participate in a massacre? Good for them, how? Do you think they thirst for the sight of spilled blood and cracked heads? Will getting it help them sleep at night? Tipping big rocks down a cliff face and lobbing arrows down a valley at helpless targets is not combat.

He saw his thoughts echoed on two other faces before him, the two Mayors who’d seen combat themselves, and knew it as more than an abstraction. One of them — Tauk, another former winner of Valour’s Helm and Mayor of Tanton — said, ‘Their actions will tell the story. So far they do not turn about and take a longer road … rather, they wait and more forces come. Now let us hear Anfen’s news. He has had a long journey and we prolong it.’

Anfen said, ‘One question. You sent Far Gaze after me. May I ask why?’

‘To see you were still alive, and to guide you back, if you needed it,’ said Tauk, his look indicating he told most of the truth, but not all. ‘We were due to depart — our cities don’t run themselves. The ambitious ones will be clearing their throats for speeches. I’m sure my capture and death are already common knowledge.’ The other Mayors chuckled. ‘I trust your tale will explain why Far Gaze isn’t with you now.’

They were largely quiet as he told them what had occurred since he set out. The base directly under the castle had failed, thanks to the groundmen, though Anfen had expected little different setting out — this despite having freed a number of their slaves as a gesture of good will, and despite enormous bribes. He could see by the Council’s faces they would send him, or someone, back to try again. He reported success in mapping out some of the tunnel sections close to the castle, even directly beneath it, for they’d found a staggering amount of underground space apparently unknown to the castle, near the entry point to Otherworld.

Which brought him to the Pilgrims. That part of the tale got them interested. A hundred questions were ready to leap from their mouths, he saw. He told them all they needed to know, and was annoyed at their fascination with trivial things: the Otherworlders’ personalities, dress styles. He held up his hands. ‘Please. Time wastes. It was the charm I found with Case you now need to hear of. It was given to him by the Invia, who then placed him in the castle’s high towers.’

That got their even closer attention. He held it too, telling them with as much conviction and detail as he could what he’d seen on the charm: the conversation between Vous and the Arch Mage, the Arch Mage’s fear of the Wall’s destruction, his apparent fear of a ‘plot’ to destroy the Wall. But Anfen also saw on the Mayors’ faces scepticism and doubt.

‘We will vote on this business with the Wall,’ said the Mayor of the other ‘Great’ Free City, Yinfel. ‘You’ve more to tell, I’d venture? Is it time yet to show the contents of that bag at your feet?’

Anfen had had trouble getting it past the guards. He undid the satchel’s buckles. Inside it was the Tormentor’s hand, like twisted threads of dark glass rope wound into muscle and covered in spikes. It had stopped twitching only two days prior and had shrunk a little, but the spikes of its fingers were still sharper than daggers. Anfen demonstrated this by digging it fingers-first into the floor at his feet.

He said, ‘And now, it’s time for you to meet Lalie. She waits outside. Shall I bring her in? I may as well tell you now, she is an Inferno cultist. I use present tense as she’s not yet repented in my hearing.’

That also got their attention. Izven, Mayor of the one city in the world which allowed Inferno cultists to dwell within its walls, looked around at the others’ reaction and shook his head as though baffled by it. ‘Well yes, bring her in!’

‘And make her very welcome,’ said one of the others sarcastically. Izven, in his own opinion clearly more enlightened than they, rolled his eyes. The others smiled at his expense.

Lalie seemed not to know whether to snarl at the Mayors with her teeth bared, or to shyly say nothing and hide her face behind her hands. For their part, they stared at her baldly and waited. Anfen had tried to groom her for this, on top of all else he’d had to prepare, but it seemed that job had been poorly done. When she saw the Tormentor’s hand sticking up from the floor, she yelped and turned to run. Anfen grabbed her.

‘Come now,’ said Izven, smiling kindly at her — and he did have a kind face, alone among the Mayors: a small, soft-looking man who looked like he belonged among books, not planning wars. ‘You need not fear. I will bring you with me to Yinfel, where we have some of your people. There are rules, of course. Some rituals are not permitted within our walls, nor with our citizens, but you will not be hurt.’

The others rolled their eyes at this; yet another sore point, for no Yinfel law prevented the cultists using people of other cities in their rituals. After some more coaxing, Lalie told them what had happened.

Said the Mayor of Faifen, ‘It may be painful to you, dear, but what about their method of killing? I see the sharpness of its hand, but what makes them any worse than, say, men with swords?’

‘Everything slows down,’ Lalie said quietly. ‘It’s like you’re stuck in mud.’

‘Just by being near them?’

‘Not exactly. One reaches for you, and you run. But your legs feel very slow, and so does everything around you.’

‘And they move fast, while you move slowly?’

Lalie shut her eyes in concentration, remembering. ‘No … they move slowly, too. Time all jags around, fast, slow, so you lose balance too much to fight back or hide. And when they pull you apart and cut you to pieces, they do it slowly. But if you watch them do it to someone else, it looks normal speed.’

‘How do you know that? You seem unhurt.’

‘One reached for me. It hadn’t finished with the one it was already killing. I kind of … kind of slipped into … what seemed like a bubble of weird time. It did it slowly, just cutting him apart, and he looked like he could feel it all, over a long time-’ She didn’t finish.

‘How did you survive, dear?’

Lalie didn’t meet their gaze. ‘The High Priest was a big man. I was … I was his favourite. He saw it go for me, and he swung an axe and surprised it. He cut off that.’ She pointed to the hand sticking from the floor. ‘It killed the High Priest. But since it had only one hand left, the High Priest wasn’t as badly cut up as the others. There was enough of him left for me to … hide amongst his … his carcass.’ She swallowed. ‘I crawled in-’

‘That’s enough, dear, that’s enough. We see.’

They sent her out, leaving Anfen to tell them of the new mages, reliving his own trauma for their questions and clarifications, just as Lalie had. Said Ilgresi, ‘Our thanks, Anfen. May we have a summary of your thoughts before you leave us?’

If he hadn’t been so worn from the road, he would have made this speech impassioned and rousing, he knew. But he’d spoken for a long time now, and his voice sounded hollow and tired to his own ears, and, he was sure, to theirs. He said, ‘I believe we have found something that could turn the course of history. The castle rulers have one great fear. Thanks to the Invia and the Pilgrims, we have learned what it is. The Wall at World’s End must come down. I don’t yet know how, but from the Arch Mage’s own tongue, it can be done, and it fills them with dread. We will find a way to do it, if we combine our minds and our resolve. The invaders beyond your doorstep are a sign this war nears its end. Your cities have held out so far but they won’t hold out forever. With new mages on their way, the last seconds tick down.’

A heavy silence drew out. Anfen sensed their mood and his heart sank.

‘What would happen, if the Wall was destroyed?’ said Liha of Faifen. ‘What do we know?’

Anfen was forced to admit: ‘Nothing. We know nothing.’ Liha settled back in her chair as if that settled the discussion.

‘Correction,’ said Anfen, growing angry, ‘we know our victory is impossible as things stand. We know the heavy pendulum of this war swings against us. We know that if it does swing back against them, too much will have been left in ruin behind it for the old world to recover. One lunatic with the power they’re seeking could decide the rest of us are no longer needed. He could kill everyone in the world, and he just might. We know the doom of the Free Cities comes as certain and steadily as the night, and that if a time ever existed for drastic action — even with unpredictable results — it is now.’

‘What is on the other side of the Wall?’ said Liha, in tones a schoolteacher might use.

‘We don’t know,’ Anfen had to admit.

‘Yes. Well, there is talk these things, these … “Tormentors” come from that side. It is, of course, just talk. We simply don’t know.’ Again, maddeningly, she sat back in her seat: that’s settled, then.

‘Consider this,’ said Anfen. ‘The Arch Mage said he had already discovered a plot to do it. Since none of you knows of any such plot, it may be a figment of their paranoia, or it may be some hidden ally in an Aligned city, who has stumbled across knowledge we don’t have. But the castle considers it a plot we would consider. That means it cannot be as contrary to our interests as we may fear.’

Liha looked at him almost with pity. ‘We don’t know who their hypothetical plotters are. It may be some suicidal fool who wants the whole world brought to ash. It may have been a drunk on a street corner, a confession beaten out of a prisoner. It may be someone was misheard, it may be anyone at all. Or no one at all. And we are venturing, now, even further from what we know. I don’t think the matter even warrants a vote.’

The others were quiet. ‘We have not seen this charm you speak of,’ said Ilgresi at last.

‘Has my information seemed good to you, so far?’ said Anfen, though he knew it was hopeless. ‘A military action always has objectives and costs. Our cost is unknown. Our objective is to take away the power stolen from twelve cities and placed in one man’s hands.’

The Mayor of Yinfel, Izven, added: ‘The objective of leaving the Wall alone: not subjecting ourselves to some unknown consequences. The cost: Vous stays in power and one day claims all our cities. An unacceptable cost. I have heard enough. I vote in support of Anfen’s proposal.’ Anfen blinked, surprised. He waited.

Tanton and High Cliffs were two cities in sight of the Wall. Their Mayors had sat grim-faced, saying nothing, while the discussion unfolded. Anfen did not expect their support. Sure enough, High Cliffs Mayor Ousan’s voice was heavy with sarcasm: ‘How do you propose we do it? Have you seen the Wall, Anfen?’

‘I have never gone that far south.’

‘Then let me help you. It stretches from deep underground to the highest point in the sky. It runs so far belowground we are unable to tunnel beneath it. The Wall itself may be thin as a glass window, it may be thicker than a mountain. Stoneflesh giants stand before it and guard it. They allow nothing to get near them, even other stoneflesh giants.’

Erkairn, representing the scattered peoples, saw an opportunity to gain credibility with the other Mayors and grabbed it: ‘Have you seen a stoneflesh giant, Anfen? They are the size of a Great Spirit. How would you combat them? Your plan is insanity.’

‘Enough from High Cliffs. Erkairn, you will not be voting on this matter, unless my colleagues disagree,’ said Ilgresi. Erkairn began to protest, but Ilgresi ignored him. His black teeth showed in what seemed a grimace directed at Anfen. ‘For the purpose of this discussion, let us assume it can be done. The discussion is not about how, it is about whether we should. And though the matter certainly warrants a vote, Liha, my decision is made.’ Ilgresi took a deep breath. ‘I vote against.’

Ousan of High Cliffs: ‘Against. My city is closest to the Wall. Show me the message on this lost charm and I will consider the question again.’

Liha of Faifen, shaking her head as though the room had descended into a circus: ‘Against! Even had I seen this charm and its contents, I would deem the whole proposal an insane distraction from armies massing nearby as we speak. Our best hope is subversion of Aligned cities from within.’

‘They play that slow game far better than us, or else we’d be winning,’ said Anfen, but he was ignored.

Wioutin, advisor to the Mayor of Tsith: ‘I believe Anfen’s reasoning is best. If the decision were mine, I would vote in his support. But I am not Mayor of my city and cannot commit it to such an action. I vote against, until I am able to speak with my Mayor.’

Mayor of Tanton, Tauk’s eyes had not left Anfen’s face throughout. Now he looked sidelong at the Mayor of High Cliffs. ‘My city too is in sight of the Wall. This city is in sight of Vous’s clawed hand and we’ll all be weaker, should it fall. As one who has fought against him with a sword, not just words, I vote for Anfen’s proposal. His reasons are mine.’

‘The count is two aye, four nay. But Tsith’s Mayor is yet to have his say, and his advisor supports the action.’

‘I am but one of five, what they call the “high advisors”. There are a further two dozen experts in various-’

‘Thank you. Assuming Tsith votes in support, we are tied three for, three against.’

‘Then perhaps the scattered peoples break the deadlock,’ said the flustered Erkairn. ‘And I vote against. I would give my reasons but you don’t seem especially-’

‘Then that matter is settled,’ said Ilgresi with a sigh. ‘Anfen, have you anything else to discuss? No? We thank you. Enjoy my city. And do be careful to wear a hood if you venture down to ground level. Assassinations have been foiled, just this week.’