‘Well, it’s too late to save the wall now.’ Sister Pan released Nona’s arm and shuffled out to intercept the Academics.

Nona followed to ensure no stray arrows found the old woman since she seemed wholly oblivious to the threat.

‘Mistress Path.’ Rexxus Degon favoured Sister Pan with a low bow. ‘If you will excuse us. Duty calls. I’m sure you will have sensed the presence of our enemy beyond the walls.’ Even as he spoke Nona sensed it too. Vibrations rippling out through the thread-scape. Trembling in the spiderweb. Footsteps were being taken along the Path. Many footsteps, as if an army were marching along it.

Sister Pan made no move to get out of the old man’s way.

‘We really must hurry.’ He looked far from enthusiastic about the prospect. Nona wasn’t sure how much the man saw with those blind eyes of his, but it was clearly enough to know that he would much rather be somewhere else. ‘Duty calls …’

‘Duty …’ Sister Pan held her hand out, palm up, and a charred flake settled into it from the air. Others were descending all around like a black rain, some still glowing. ‘It’s too late to save the wall.’ The black flake became lost against the darkness of her palm.

‘We’ll save it!’ Rexxus leaned on his staff, his voice lowering. ‘Or die trying.’

‘I remember you as a little boy, Rexxus.’ Pan shook her head. ‘You had the bluest eyes. And your nose was always running. You should stay here with your friends.’

Rexxus bowed his head. ‘I wish I could, Mistress Path. Even so, the strength of the Empire is not wholly spent. My fellow mages and I may not have reputations for murder and carnage, but Adoma’s creatures will find that we know a few tricks of our own. If we must sell our lives the price will be a dear one, and far fewer of our enemy than they expect will live to see what they have purchased. Now, if you will excuse me, dear lady.’ He raised his staff and turned to those gathered behind him. ‘Onwards!’

‘Wait here. I’ll deal with this.’ Sister Pan began to walk towards the city wall. Above it black clouds swirled, shot through with streaks of fire. The defenders cowered now, crouched behind their battlements.

‘Nonsense!’ Rexxus hurried to overtake Sister Pan. The Academics followed him, the Mystic Brothers too. Only the pair of Holy Witches kept their place.

‘Wait here.’

Sister Pan never moved her fingers when thread-working. She said it was a habit you grew out of. Like moving your lips when reading. Even so, Nona saw the moment when she pulled the Chief Academic’s thread.

‘Yes!’ Rexxus turned to his followers with new conviction. ‘We should wait here!’ He announced it as if it had been his plan all along. Around his neck the mendant sigil that should have kept him from such manipulation, even if his mind did not, glittered impotently.

Sister Pan carried on towards the wall, her stride longer and more sure than Nona had seen it in her ten years at the convent. The sinking sun threw the ancient woman’s shadow before her and in the dying crimson of its light she seemed no longer old.

‘Sister!’ Nona caught up with Pan, keeping her gaze on the wall, alert for arrows. ‘I have to take you back. It’s not safe.’ She reached for the ancient’s arm, prepared to carry her if need be.

‘Stay. It will be all right, child.’ Pan walked on.

‘Yes, it will.’ Nona suddenly understood that Pan going to the wall alone was a fine idea. She wondered why she hadn’t seen it before. She stood there, puzzling. A moment later Nona decided that the plan had a small flaw. She would go with Pan, even though she had been told to stay. Then it would be all right.

Pan registered Nona’s return with a raised eyebrow, then a shrug. She gestured towards the stonework rising before them. ‘Can you see where the blocks will fall?’

‘What?’

‘It’s written right before us. If you look at how the threads run through the granite you can see where it will break. Seeing where the parts will fall is a little harder, Nina, but threads run into the future as well as the past. You can see the trajectories they will … Ah! Here. No, a little to the left.’ She pulled Nona to a particular spot.

‘It’s Nona. And—’ The rest of what Nona had to say was lost in a cracking that split the world, a rumble as deep as the black ice, and the screaming as the great wall of Verity began to tumble inwards. The section of wall that exploded was a hundred yards wide and centred right in front of them.

Nona slowed time’s steady march to a crawl. Huge blocks descended on gravity’s arcs, their languid rotation spraying smaller stones and broken fragments, plates of ancient plaster scything through the air, others bursting, dust trails spiralling in their wake.

True to Sister Pan’s reading, although blocks the size of carts hammered down all around her and Nona, nothing save a few pebbles and two fist-sized fragments came directly at them. These Nona managed to deflect.

Even before the impacts had stopped vibrating through the soles of Nona’s feet a thick cloud of dust began to rise. For a minute or so they stood blind, surrounded by dust so dense that even the howling winds couldn’t strip it away. The world returned in snatches and then, in one fierce, hot blast the air was clear. Nona and Pan stood alone, both of them coated grey.

Adoma’s Fist emerged from the smoke, picking their way over and around the rubble. First a lone woman in her leather battledress, then two men, one in courtly attire, the other in a robe so overblown that he might be mistaken for a street magician were it not for the sigils marked in gold thread. Over a dozen others followed with the thin man in the red armour leading them. The quantals were to the fore now, the marjals working their magics to the rear. A fire-laced hurricane rose around them, a shell to protect from arrows, with Nona and Pan inside its perimeter. All eyes were on them, the Fist variously amused, surprised, or dismissive.

The ‘street magician’ seemed outraged. ‘Is this all the emperor sends to stand before us? A child and a crone?’ He spoke the empire tongue with harsh angles but clear enough.

‘Wait!’ The thin man in red raised his gauntleted hand as several around him made to summon their power. ‘Can it be? The Path-mage of Sweet Mercy? I had heard you were dead!’

‘Not quite, Yom Rala, not quite.’ Pan smiled but there was sadness in it.

Yom Rala. Nona remembered his name now and the fear that had coloured Kettle’s voice when she spoke of him. The man had a deadly reputation.

Yom Rala addressed his colleagues. ‘You will have heard of Sister Pan. In the Antral Wars they whispered her name. She brought Darlamar low before most of us were born, and the Mage of Elon too. When enough time has passed for her to be counted as history they will set her name among the most famed Path-walkers of this empire and speak it with that of Sister Cloud and Sister Owl.’

‘She looks as if walking to her grave would be beyond her!’ cried a young woman in a sigil robe of fiery yellows and oranges.

Several of the younger Path-mages laughed.

‘We will show Sister Pan respect!’ Yom Rala barked. He repeated himself in Scithrowl then addressed the nun in softer tones, his accent almost unnoticeable. ‘I would offer to duel but it is said you haven’t walked the Path in twenty years.’