The Pilgrims

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.