The cave was left behind.And the bodies.And the moans.And Limbo.

  Ahead y the road to the Forge.

  There was no transition.

  They simply stepped into the narrow passage behind the rock, where cold damp air brushed their skin - and on the next step the air changed. Drier. Heavier. The crunch of cave gravel beneath their boots vanished, repced by that same rocky pin An had already come to know.

  He looked back.

  Behind them was only a rift - a split between two masses of stone. No cave entrance. No rock with rings and chains. No trace of sughter, blood, demons, torn bodies. Nothing. One gray boulder. Another. And another. A pin stretching to the horizon. The sky hung low and gray, packed with compacted clouds, as if someone had stuffed it full of dirty, wet cotton.

  The man freed from the chains walked beside him - and that proved it hadn’t been an illusion.

  He moved slightly ahead, without looking back. At his belt hung the hilt - the fragment of a sword in which An still stubbornly saw his rod. Habit clung to the word like a handrail. From time to time the hilt seemed to glow faintly from within, a dull golden ember - but that might have been imagination.

  An didn’t ask.

  It felt as though if he asked anything now, everything would fall apart. Or, worse, become too… real.

  They walked.

  The rocky wastend did not change. Jagged sbs. Ft boulders. Sparse tufts of harsh grass, like the whiskers of a dried-out old man. The wind would die into sticky silence, then suddenly sh out, tugging at An’s shirt, filling his mouth and nose with the scent of raw stone and something distant, earthy. The clouds did not race - they rolled slowly, like heavy carcasses.

  Sometimes a sound echoed somewhere off to the side.

  A low growl. A scraping, as if cws were dragging across stone. A squeal - animal or human, hard to tell. Once, on the very edge of hearing, An caught something like a whisper - long, drawn out, as though someone were stretching it through the air like thread.

  He shivered.

  The man ahead did not break stride. He barely turned - but An noticed how, a couple of times, the athlete’s eyes shifted toward the sound, how his shoulder angled slightly, as if letting whatever unseen creature lurked there know: I see you. And I am not afraid.

  After that, it grew quiet in that direction.

  An walked counting steps. First to a hundred. Then to a thousand. Then he grew tired and stopped.

  A hollow was forming inside him.

  The rod - no, what he had grown used to calling the rod - had vanished from his belt as easily as a bad dream. There was no feeling of a “task.” No invisible necessity nudging him toward the clerks’ counter, whispering inside: Get up. Go. Fix it. His head felt empty. No call. Not even the familiar dull acceptance.

  Limbo is a pce of waiting.Your task is minor malfunctions.The system is unstable.

  And now what?

  Who had decided he should search for some vanished owner of a sword? What had the man in the white robe actually meant, beyond cryptic hints? Who was he, in the end - and why should An trust him?

  He realized his fists were clenched.

  “Slower?” the man ahead asked suddenly, without turning.

  His voice was hoarse, but no longer torn as it had been in the cave. Clear. Accustomed to command.

  “I’m fine,” An forced out.

  He wasn’t fine. His legs ached. The tops of his feet burned. His back still remembered the crushing pressure of the vortex winds. He would have gdly sat down. Or in ft. Or gone back - even to the open-pn office of Limbo, even to the counter and the silent clerks. The sudden return of bodily sensations did not comfort him. They didn’t feel like a good sign.

  But there was no road back. Literally. When he had once turned around, the horizon behind him looked exactly like the one ahead. Even a boulder he had marked with his eyes had disappeared. As though the world ground away their footprints the instant they lifted their heels.

  “Come on, then,” the man said unexpectedly, almost friendly.

  An said nothing.

  The sounds continued to appear and fade.

  Sometimes, on a distant rocky outcrop, An glimpsed a shadow. Twisted. Too tall. With wrong-shaped legs or a neck too long. They flickered and froze, as if deliberating. Something slithered along the ground, leaving behind a gray streak like slime. But the moment the man with the sword-hilt so much as tilted his head, the shadows slowly retreated, seeping back into cracks and crevices, behind stones.

  He’s like a beacon, An thought. Or a warning sign. Either they feared him - or they dared not touch him. The thought that he walked beside someone the local horrors feared was both reassuring and irritating. Would they even have let him come here alone? Or would they have thrown him in unprepared, with nothing but a broken rod against all of this?

  Minor malfunctions.

  Was this a minor malfunction?

  Hundreds of sin creatures. A battered face. Chains torn free. A sword-hilt at another man’s belt…

  If this was minor, what did major look like?

  The slope beneath their feet grew unpleasantly steep.

  An hadn’t noticed when the pin began tilting downward. At first it was subtle - stones simply sat a little lower. Then more. Then more still. Within a few dozen steps they had to move carefully, adjusting to the angle, choosing each foothold. The stone sbs were chipped in pces, smoothed in others, as though something had rolled or flowed over them for centuries.

  “Careful,” the man muttered, focused.

  The wind struck upward into their faces, like air rushing from a pipe. Dampness carried the scent of moss and stale depths. Somewhere far below echoed a heavy, prolonged, repeating sound.

  They descended into what felt like a colossal basin. The walls were sheer in pces, gray, streaked with snted gouges. Above, a strip of sky y between the rims. From here it seemed even lower, even heavier.

  An stumbled and caught himself on an outcropping. His fingers scraped; skin tore; dark, thick blood welled up. He froze, staring at the drop.

  His own. Real. Or was it?

  “Bleeding,” his companion remarked cheerfully. “That means it’ll work!”

  His tone was almost good-natured. As if he hadn’t recently stood knee-deep in sin demons.

  At the bottom of the ravine they found a spring. An ordinary one - like the limestone basin before. Only here the stone was darkened by time. Water flowed from a crack, gathering in a small pool before slipping away in a thin stream that vanished among rocks.

  The tunic-cd athlete tested it carefully. Nodded. Crouched and drank from his palm. He spshed water over himself, scrubbing away dried blood. Clots peeled from abraded skin, revealing dark crimson beneath. He gestured briskly for An to join him.

  The water was cold. Nearly freezing. His head cleared slightly. The sharp edge of anxiety didn’t vanish - but it became thinner. Manageable.

  The man studied him, squinting.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, no longer smiling. He himself looked magnificent, like a walking statue lit by unseen sun.

  “I thought… I had a job,” An said. “That I was doing it. Doing it well.”

  The word well sounded especially pitiful.

  “You were,” the man agreed. “You were. While you were being directed. While someone put a tool in your hand.”

  An’s hand twitched automatically toward his empty belt. His fingers curled into a fist again.

  “It wasn’t mine,” he muttered. “I was told I had to return it to its owner.”

  “Told,” the man repeated with a snort. “A lot of people like to ‘tell.’ Especially those busy with… other matters.”

  He spshed water on his face once more, exhaled heavily, and sat on the stone. His fingers brushed the hilt at his belt - a short, silent, habitual motion. A faint shimmer ran along the metal.

  “Don’t worry so much, technician,” he added more gently. “The Forge is the answer. We’ll sort out what belongs to whom there.”

  “The Forge?” An hesitated. “What is it?”

  The man thought for a moment, gazing past An at the strip of sky.

  “Let’s say,” he answered, “it’s a pce where things become themselves. Or cease to be. A pce where… anything can be made.”

  “And repaired?” An asked suddenly, surprising even himself.

  His companion was silent for a second.

  “You’ll see.”

  A chill ran down An’s spine.

  The climb back up was steeper than the descent. Whether the angle had changed or fatigue had finally settled on his shoulders, he couldn’t tell. Stone crumbled beneath their soles. At times he had to brace himself with his hands, searching for holds. The athlete led confidently, never slipping, never misstepping. His body seemed to remember such ascents better than anything else.

  Once, he even offered An his hand when he slipped. The fingers were hot. Unnaturally strong.

  At the top, An y on his back for a moment, staring at the gray sky. The clouds seemed to move faster. Or maybe that was imagination. The wind howled somewhere nearby - not just noise now, but almost words. He forced himself not to think about it.

  “Up,” the man said. “Better you see this standing.”

  An rose, brushing at his pants out of habit.

  And saw.

  The wall began from nowhere.

  It simply existed - as if the world had struck it head-on. Enormous rectangur blocks of dark stone, smooth yet scorched-looking, stacked to an impossible height. No ledges. No battlements. No towers. Just a continuous vertical mass rising into the heavy gray sky so high its top was invisible.

  To the left - the wall stretched until it dissolved into haze. To the right - the same. It seemed to encircle everything here. Or perhaps to guard something.

  Reflections flickered faintly across its surface, like distant firelight. Occasionally, patches shimmered - as if unseen figures moved with torches on the other side.

  A road ran along the base of the wall. Not like the one on the pin, but packed, even. Stones leveled, gaps filled. Easy to walk. Fine gray dust - like ash - soft beneath their boots.

  “A fortress,” the man said with a slight smile. “If you like. Some called it that. Some called it simply - the Wall.”

  He stepped onto the road. An’s feet followed of their own accord.

  “What is it?” An asked quietly. “A wall of what?”

  “A wall between what was and what will be,” the man answered calmly. “Or between those who make - and those who use.”

  He gnced at An like a commander assessing a soldier.

  “The Forge of the World, technician.” His voice grew louder, resonant with solemn pride. “We’ve arrived.”