Mary Shaw woke up feeling the cold light of dawn on her face. After a moment struggling with the urge to go back to sleep, she sat up and went about starting the day. Just another ordinary day.

Her mother was already awake and in the main room, sitting at the dining table, sipping tea and having her morning staring contest with the window.

“I think it’s closer than it was yesterday.” She said, “We’re going to have to move soon.”

Mary looked out the window.

“The old yew’s still standing.” She said, “and that’s right on the edge, a hundred yards off from our property.”

“All the same, I think it’s creeping up some.”

“I’m sure it is.” Mary replied, putting her arms around her mother’s shoulders, “But that’s no reason to be worrying about it just yet. Life goes on, no need to talk like a Seeker about it.”

“Sure, sure, but I’m not going to make mistakes like your father.”

Mary gave a deep, frustrated sigh. “Dad was drunk and acting stupid. Plus, I mean, that’s the past. It’s done. You have the kettle on still?”

Mary’s mother smiled. “Look for yourself.”

Pour tea, drink tea, brush hair, and take her own worried look out the window. Another ordinary day of waiting for the end of the world.

“I’m going to go into town.” She declared.

“Why?”

“No reason not to.”

With that, she threw a belt with pouches around her waist, took her keys from one of them, and stepped out into the world.

Town center wasn’t far away, but the walk was still somehow refreshing, and made it actually feel like a new day was here. Everything was about the same as normal, until a man stepped up next to her, matching her stride.

“Don’t look.” He said quietly, “But you’re being followed.”

“Followed?” she turned her head.

“Don’t.” the man snapped, quickly and with great insistence. “Don’t look, right now they don’t think you know about them, miss…?”

“Mary. Mary Shaw.”

“Mary Shaw, then, going into town?”

She looked up at him. He was marginally taller than her, with watery blue eyes and jet black hair. His clothes were not totally outlandish or garish, but she wondered if there was anywhere where the outfit would be considered fashionable.

“What’s it to you?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, “I’m not exactly the most intimidating escort there is, and those four armed hooligans outnumber the two of us two to one. If I know people and I think I do, stepping in gave them pause but won’t stop them trying something before we get in sight of civilization, got it?”

His tone was baffling. “Are you enjoying this?”

“Not as such. Now, you can go ahead and look, but once you do it’ll be time to show off just how fast you can run. Do you understand, Mary Shaw?”

“Who are you?”

“Later.”

Mary turned her head and looked. Four men, obviously armed and looking less than savory were walking behind her, just far enough that she hadn’t noticed. Whoever the stranger was, he wasn’t a liar. Mary burst into a run.

A minute later , the road took a turn and she felt her arm near yanked out of its socket before she went careening into the bushes. Another moment later, four sets of swift footfalls ran past, and a moment after that she and the stranger stood up.

“Sorry about that.” He said, “Are you okay?”

“More or less.” She replied. “Care to explain who those people were?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve never seen them before in my life except for all the other times.”

“What?”

“Oh, everywhere it’s about the same in some ways, and that lot is one of the ways. Doesn’t matter what their names are or where they’re from, they’re the thugs on the road and I’ve seen thugs on the road a thousand times before it feels like.” He turned and started to pace off.

“Hold on.” Mary called. “Who are you?”

“What?” he asked

“I don’t even know your name, and you saved at least my purse back there.”

“A name’s what you want?”

“It’s a good start.”

“How about George?”

“Your name is George?”

“I never said that.”

“You just…” she shook her head, “Look, George-“

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“George. It’s a rubbish name.”

“Then what’s your name?”

“Is it really that important? It’s not George.”

“Well,” Mary replied, “I’ll keep calling you George unless you tell me.”

“It’s really that important to you? You’re sure you wouldn’t rather just head into town, because I just came from there and am currently walking in a totally different direction.”

“I’m sure, Georgey boy.”

“All right!” he took a deep breath. “It’s Illarion. Now please stop calling me George!”

“Okay. Second question: where are you from?”

“Now what makes that interesting?”

“Well,” she said, “First, I don’t know you. Second, I’ve never heard a name at all like Illarion before. Third, and perhaps most importantly, is what you said about seeing hooligans a thousand times before. Means you must travel a long way.”

“It’s complicated.” He said, “And I really shouldn’t be going into this.”

“Well, I’m fine with complicated as long as you walk me through it.”

“I should just go.” He muttered to himself, and jumped in place a bit. “I should really, really just go… Okay. Anywhere else explaining would be very hard, but right here and now I can give you a good demonstration.”

“Then do.”

“It’ll be a bit of a walk, but I think there’s a demonstration around here somewhere…”

They went on, out towards the edges of the fields, until they came free of trees and into sight of another fork of the ground rift that had an end creeping up on Mary’s house.

“Here we go.” He said, walking up to the rift. “Well, come on.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Do you want to find out, or do you want me to just tell you?”

Somehow, the mystery was appealing. “I’ll bite.”

“Okay then,” he said. “Look out there and tell me what you see.”

The rift looked the same as always, a few feet to a few dozen feet of stone wall and then… it ended into black with no sign of a bottom.

“Darkness.” She said.

“Darkness?” he asked, sounding confused. “Really? Is that it?”

"Yes..." She looked up worriedly, "Seriously, where are you going with this?"

"That's not it at all."

"What's not?"

"Darkness."

"But that's all that's there, just darkness."

"Look closer." He said, pacing dangerously along the edge of the canyon. "But not too close, I don't want you falling in."

She sighed, but knelt down by the edge and looked in. "It's just... dark."

"No it isn't"

"But there's nothing there!"

Illarion smiled "Now you've got it."

For a moment, the Mary stared in confusion, but Illarion mercifully continued.

"Because, you see, there's nothing there. Not even darkness. The darkness is just your brain's way of telling yourself that everything's going to be okay, its way of coping with the simple fact that you're not not seeing anything because it's dark, but because in a way so much more total than you're used to, more than anyone should be used to, there is [/i]nothing[/i] there to see."

"So, what's the point of all this?"

"That's where I'm from." He paused a moment, as though waiting for a reaction. "Not quite like that I guess. Saying that's where I'm from would be - is, sorry - an awful lot like saying you're from a carriage or the road off behind you, but it really sounded more dramatic that way, don't you think?"

“You’re joking.”

“Not at all. Because I lied when I said there was nothing out there. Well, not exactly lied, but there are somethings in the nothing, worlds like this one, more or less.”

“And you’re from one of those?”

He nodded “M-hmm. You see, some people can travel between worlds, step through the nothing from one to the other. That’s who I am and what I do.”

“So, what” she sighed, staring at him in unbelief, “You’re some kind of crusader then, traveling places and righting wrongs, is that what you want to tell me?”

Illarion shook his head. “Nope.”

“Then what?”

“I’m a tourist.” He replied. “Traveling from place to place and seeing the sights.” He knelt next to her, looking wistfully off into the… nothing. “I don’t interfere, I just watch.”

“You interfered with me.” Mary said.

“Yes, well, things don’t always work out like I plan, especially where not interfering is concerned.”

Mary laughed. “I don’t know if I believe you or not, but I’ll sure have a crazy story to tell when I get home.”

“Yes, well… oh my.”

Mary wondered for a second what the cold, frightened tone was, but then felt the point of a knife at the small of her back as well.

“Get up.” A gruff voice said, “And turn around. Slow.”

“Oh, I hate it when they’re smart.” Illarion groaned, “Why did I have to try to duck smart thugs?”

“Hey!” the thug barked, “Just do like I say.”

Mary stood and turned, and Illarion did too.

“Now, first hand over your cash.”

“I’m not carrying any.” Mary said, “I was just out for a walk.”

“Me neither.” Illarion added hastily. “I could borrow some from you and hand it over if that would make you feel better.”

“Shut up!”

“Now, please, if you’ll just be reasonable, I’m sure-“

“I said shut up! Now,” the ringleader turned towards Mary, “If you don’t have any money, what else are you gonna give me?”

Her eyes darted between the four men. This wasn’t a good situation in the least.

“How about we just forget this happened?” she offered.

“Now, now. You can do better than that. I’m a lonely man. We’re all lonely men.”

“I’d rather jump in the rift.”

“Really?” he asked, and Mary remembered where she was standing. “That can be arranged.”

“Take my hand.” Illarion said.

“What?”

“I said shut up, already!”

“Just trust me.”

“One more word and I slit your throat.”

Mary took Illarion’s hand, and felt his grip become vicelike on her wrist. A second later, weight shifted, backwards, and they were falling… falling into the rift!

Darkness all around, pain, Mary Shaw was screaming without sound, crying without tears-

She landed on her hands and knees, the taste of blood in her mouth and aching in every muscle.

“Sorry about that.” Illarion’s voice rang in her ears. “I didn’t have time to make that pleasant, or even really safe.”

“You…”

“We went through the rift.”

“That’s impossible!”

“I told you it’s where I was from.”

“So we’re on another world?”

“Same one. Thought that would be a courtesy, at least.”

Mary Shaw looked around. She didn’t recognize any landmarks, but at least she could believe it was still home. Then again, what would another world look like?

“So,” Illarion said, looking around “You wouldn’t happen to know which way your home is, would you?”

“Don’t tell me you can’t get me back.”

“I can absolutely get you back home.”

“I’m hearing a ‘but’ coming up.”

“But,” he sighed, “It would be better if we knew exactly where we are, or I’ll be jumping you through the Blind Eternities time after time until we hit.”

“I don’t think I could take that.”

“It wouldn’t be as bad as that last time” he said, “It’s a lot easier to take someone with you if you do it a little more deliberately rather than falling out of the world.”

Illarion started to walk forward

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“No! But I know we’ve got a long way to go unless we find out how to do it faster, which would mean getting to civilization, preferably before nightfall.”

“But its morning.” Mary said as she looked around for a branch she could use as a walking stick. After the fall, her legs didn’t feel very strong.

“Look at the sun.” he said, and she did. It was about as low in the sky as she remembered, but on the wrong side! Had it taken that long, or were they just that far away from where they had started?

“So,” Mary began, catching up with her new staff, “What’s it like out there?”

“Where?”

“Past the nothing.”

“A lot like it is here, just no rifts… but I don’t think that’s what you wanted to hear, is it?”

“Not exactly. Okay, second question: What’s a tourist?”

“That’s what I am.”

“Somebody who can do what you just did? Fall through a rift and live?”

“No, that would be a Planeswalker.” He sighed, “A bit of a more technical term. A tourist is someone who travels just to see what’s out there, which I did say right after saying I was a tourist instead of a crusader.”

“Fine, fine.” Mary sighed, “But that means that there must be something out there worth seeing, doesn’t it?”

“Well, everywhere has got its little eccentricities. Like on Pyrulea, they have trees with leaves as big as houses. And that’s very rich people’s houses in some cases, so you can walk out onto the canopy and see a whole world from the tip of a leaf. It’s a fantastic view! Now the other way to see a whole lot would be to go to Segovia. Have I mentioned Segovia yet? It’s a plane in miniature, and I don’t mean just that it’s a short walk from one end to the other, I mean everything and everyone in it – miniature!”

After that, Illarion wouldn’t stop talking. It felt for all the world like he didn’t need to breathe and was taking advantage of that fact to rattle out more stories of more planes as this place on this plane faded into night. Mary wasn’t worried about the time: though the trip through the rift had taken a lot out of her, it still wasn’t past mid day as far as she was concerned, and she was recovering from the stress well enough. Finally, some time past nightfall, he stopped, and abruptly.

“Hold on… what’s that?”

Mary looked, and saw two lights off to her right, one following the other at speed. She caught a glint of steel: the pursuer was armed.

“Like you said.” She said, striding forward, “Just about the same everywhere.”

“I really shouldn’t.” Illarion sighed, “I should just look away, say I’ve interfered enough already…”

“Then leave it to me!” Mary snapped, and broke into a run towards the path of, vaguely aware that Illarion was running after her. She intersected the other running pair with a swing of her walking stick, taking aim at the pursuers gut. Either she hit, or he ran into it, and the man doubled over with a groan of pain, dropping his sword and coughing. The fleeing man stopped and turned around just as Illarion arrived.

“Who are you?” he asked, sounding half relieved, half worried, and entirely out of breath.

“I’m Mary.” She said. “How about you.”

“Silas.”

He bent down and picked up the fallen sword, then started to step towards his fallen attacker.

“Hold on, Silas.” Illarion said, “There’s not need for that.”

“Are you joking?” Silas asked, “Or did you just not see him trying to kill me?”

“That’s no reason to kill him.”

Mary looked from the man to the prone figure and back again. “Just take the weapon, he won’t be able to do a thing then, now will he?”

Silas looked up at her. “Well,” he sighed, “I’m not one to argue with a pretty redhead who just saved my neck, so I guess he lives.”

“You don’t sound too happy about that.” Illarion noted. “Why was he chasing you, Silas?”

“I can’t tell you that.” Silas replied. The man on the ground groaned and was met with a swift kick, “Just that he’s a militant apostle nut, and would slit our throats in the night if given half a chance.”

“Militant apostle?” Illarion mused, “Now, that is interesting.”

“Why?” Mary asked.

“Well, as I understand it the Apostles of the Void are all about the slow, inevitable extinction of everything. They proselytize, sure, but spend most of their time meditating on nothing, trying to be one with nothing and all that. It would take something pretty important and pretty strange to make one chase you down the road with a knife – or so I’ve heard.”

“Look,” Silas said, “I’m sorry, I know I’m not making the best impression, but I have a job I’m trying to do, and talking about it before I get to camp would defeat the purpose. If you come with me, I can explain after we get there.”

“The night’s young.”

They went on, another hour bringing them within sight of lights. Not a town, but nearly as large as large as a small one: tents and torches arranged against the darkness. Men rushed up to meet the envoy and, as happened to be the case, Illarion and Mary Shaw.

They were led quickly around, or at least Silas was and Illarion and Mary followed. With quite a bit of fuss and haste, they arrived at their destination, an unremarkable tent near the middle of the camp.

There was a man of perhaps some fifty years at best seated across a small desk from the entrance.

“Who the devil are you?” he demanded, eyeing Illarion.

“Well,” Illarion said, “That’s a funny story actually, and I could ask you the same thing but I’m not going to.”

“They saved my life, sir.” Silas offered, “I was going to be run down by an Apostle on my way here.”

“Hm.” The replied. “Have you brought it?”

“Yes sir. Our best scholarship went into this.” Silas held out a metal scroll case

The man took it. “I don’t care about sources. Only results”

“Alright.” Illarion said, “I get it now.”

“What?”

“This is about the Eye, isn’t it? Fascinating structure we’ve all extrapolated its existence for the last eighty years or so but no one has been able to locate it.”

“How in the nine hells of Phyrexia do you know?” the leader demanded

“It’s simple, scholarship and results. The Eternal Guard cares about one, the Seekers about the other and no one else with either. They’d only work together even in an uneasy truce if something benefited both their causes, and the Eternal Guard don’t think this world can be saved. Furthermore, whatever our friend Silas was carrying was enough to drive at least one Apostle into a violent state, and that isn’t easy. The way you talk about it means that one wasn’t the first and won’t be the last, so they must see that little scroll case as a threat to the natural order. Which means you think you’ve found it, doesn’t it?”

Mary stared at him in shock. “You got all that?”

“Didn’t I mention?” Illarion replied smugly, “I’m a genius.”

“So, genius,” the commander said, his manner icy, “Where do you stand?”

“What?”

“You talk about us like you’re an outsider, where do you stand?”

“Well,” Illarion said, dithering, “First of all I don’t think that’s entirely a fair question.”

“How, pray tell, would it not be?”

“I’m not exactly from around here.”

“That’s not relevant, the story’s the same everywhere. Either you stand with preservation, with having a chance, you stand with the lunatics who want to see it all fall apart, or you stand nowhere like most of the spineless masses.”

“Excuse me!” Mary shouted, “Spineless?”

The commander turned his glare onto her. “Frankly, I hadn’t pegged either of you as the neutral sort, but if you’re just going to sit back and ignore the world’s problems, then spineless is just what you are.”

“Brilliant.” Mary growled, “You’re insulting me before you even know my name.”

“Prove me wrong.”

“Fine.” She took a deep breath. “My name is Mary Shaw, and I finally worked out that the rifts weren’t just there when I was seven and my father fell into one in a drunken stupor. Like every kid I had a moment when I went from not understanding time to understanding it too well. And unlike you, whoever you are, I faced it. Every day I face that it might be the last day for our whole world. It probably won’t be, but who knows? Maybe it will happen tomorrow. And you know what? Life goes on. My life goes on, and everyone else’s life goes on without some crusade to try to change the world. So, unlike you, I’ve actually faced the facts and gotten past my childish fantasies, while you have the nerve to sit there and call me spineless for it. Don’t ever do that again.”

“Now who is being insulting?”

“Oh, come off it.” Illarion sighed, “Can’t we just get along and deal with what’s happening right now? I mean, look at this,” he snatched the scroll case and pulled the paper from it. “A map, unless I miss my mark, to the legendary Eye. A hundred years this world’s been falling apart, more or less, someone’s at least speculated its existence for what, fifty? All the resources of an entire world dedicated to finding it and after who knows how long of failure, you have! And that’s brilliant. I mean, I like to think I’m a genius, but if its right than whoever derived this map, well… I’d like to shake their hands, or hand if it wasn’t a team effort, and ask them just how they got it. Of course, that’s if it’s accurate.”

“If?” Silas asked, somewhere between intrigued and offended.

“Well, if one of your lot had actually been there, there wouldn’t be much need for a clandestine map being transported in the middle of the night, would there? I’m betting these directions are based on scholarship.”

“The best scholarship.” Silas insisted, “We’ve been looking for patterns in the rifts since the beginning, and we finally found not just any pattern, but the eye of the storm, so to speak.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Illarion said, “But how do you know the magical eye that’s going to save your world is there unless you’ve actually seen it?”

“If you’re trying to convince us we’ll be let down when we go there, sir,” the commander growled, “Then you are wasting your time.”

“Let down?” he asked, “No, not at all… I just want to convince you to actually go and have a look!”

Mary, Silas, and the commander all stared at him as though he were a lunatic.

“Oh, I know you were already planning an expedition.” He sighed, “What else would this camp be for? I just wanted it to sound profound, and maybe insightful enough to get to see whatever’s there myself.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.” The commander growled, “Whose side are you on?”

“Now, if I sided with the Apostles, would I be honest about that?”

“I’d like to think I could tell if you were lying.”

“Well then, the fact is I know two things for sure. The first one, and I’m sorry to say it, is that the Apostles are dead right – not about what should happen, necessarily, but about the fact that this world coming apart at the seams is totally natural. That’s how things work, just the way of the world.” He shushed the start of several objections. “The second thing I know for sure is that the rest of your lot either live with it or try to fight it. Now, I think Mary here said enough about living with it, but fighting it? Holding off the forces of decay one inch at a time, fighting on even when you’re not sure there’s hope – especially when you’re not sure there’s hope – that ranks up there with the most brilliant things I’ve seen people do. As far as you know, the world could end tomorrow and instead of sitting back and waiting to die you live your lives out and some of you, the majority in this room I think, decide to try to take fate into your own hands. No more gods or destinies, just people standing up to the world, one way or another. Absolutely brilliant.”

The commander eyed him carefully. “You say these two saved you from Apostle attack, Silas?”

“Yes, they did.”

“Well then, they may be your bodyguards when we set out in the morning.”

“If I may,” Illarion interjected, “the morning might be a bit late, as we left your little enemy with a bad stomach ache, but quite fine in the long run.”

“Hm.” He growled, “I’ll take that under advisement, then. Now, would all three of you please leave me be?”

They walked out of the tent, following Silas. As soon as they were in the clear, he spoke.

“Sorry.” He said, “I should have known he’d be in a foul mood. Seekers usually are.”

“That so?” Mary asked, “I guess they must put their best foot forward when recruiters come to town.”

“Everyone does.” Illarion said, “Or they wouldn’t be very good recruiters. So, what are the chances we move tonight?”

“Good.” Silas said, “I’ve been the runner between him and the Archivists for a year now. He may be gruff, but he’s not an idiot.”

The wait wasn’t a long one, and the call came out for mobilization within what felt like an hour. As the camp started getting ready, Mary noticed Illarion gazing up at the sky.

“What’s so interesting?” she asked.

“It’s kind of funny.” He said, “No stars.”

“What’s a star?”

“Oh, no one really knows for sure, and I suspect it varies from plane to plane, but they all look the same: countless little points of light in the night sky. I’d like to ask Silas if there’s any record of them here, or if he simply didn’t bother with making night interesting.”

“He?”

“I’ll explain when we get to the eye.” He said, “It’s complicated.”

“So you think we’ll find it?”

“I hope so. It would be interesting, and what’s a tourist about if not finding interesting places to look at?”

“I wouldn’t know.” She replied, “I haven’t met any tourists before. Or planeswalkers, for that matter.”

A moment later, Silas stepped up. “Couldn’t help but overhear.” He said.

“And what would that be?”

“Planeswalker. Most people have no idea what it means, but I’m a lorekeeper of the Eternal Guard.”

“And pray tell, what do you think it means.”

“First, it means you can leave whenever you want to.”

“That’s right, and second?”

“It means you’re only doing nothing because you’re choosing to.” He said, “You’re just sitting back and watching not because you can’t help, but because you won’t.”

“That’s not entirely fair…”

“Then it’s not unfair either.”

Illarion looked away. “We’d better get going.”

He started to walk forwards, and Mary Shaw watched. It had only been a few hours, as far as she was concerned, since she had started what seemed like a perfectly ordinary day. Now she was half a world away from home, marching towards something she never wanted to have any part in, was never interested in: the fate of her world. She looked around, and realized almost no one had their eyes on her. Silas maybe, but no one else. It would be a long way back alone, and her mother would be worried sick by the time she got home, but if she went any further with this mess, she could get herself killed.

Then again, she reminded herself, she might not die if she kept on, or might die on the road, or the world could fall apart. It could always fall apart. What could it hurt to just go and see what was there, legendary eye or nothing?

Mary looked around again. Part of her wanted to go, leave all of this behind, but the rest couldn’t sleep without finding out the truth of what was at the end of their road, the end of the map. Mary knew that she could always turn back, technically, but realized that she couldn’t live with herself if she did.

She hurried to catch up with Illarion and Silas, marching ahead, instructions coming down. She was surprised at how few people assembled. Ten? Twenty? The rest were staying behind.

“Why so few?” she asked aloud.

“Distractions.” Silas answered, “Everyone staying behind is there so the Apostles don’t realize we’ve left.”

“Had a lot of trouble with them?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He answered. “I couldn’t believe it at first either, knowing everything about how their order started.”

The road was short, short enough that Mary suspected that they had been closing in on their destination for far longer than one night, spiraling in, avoiding small rifts, cracks in the world. Somehow, Mary thought, something was keeping them small. Perhaps the tales of the Eye weren’t for nothing.

“This isn’t going to be good.” She heard Illarion whisper, presumably to himself.

“Why not?” she whispered.

“You weren’t supposed to hear that bit.”

“But I did, so tell me.”

“We’re being followed.”

About then, someone in the front yelled that they’d found an entrance. Could it really be that easy? When she rounded the corner, Mary Shaw saw that it was: a circle of gleaming metal uncovered from the earth and stone. They descended inside.

The Eye of the Void didn’t look ancient, it looked ageless. Every part was perfectly pristine, but its lines and geometries had a quality about them that resonated, filling Mary with a strange sense of dread. She would have said it was too perfect, except there were points that didn’t match up with sinister geometry. After a moment, she turned to Illarion, who, as the group fanned out, looked to be examining a crystal on one wall.

“Hello old chap.” He said.

Mary looked. The crystal was hollow, a desiccated mummy inside. She put a hand over her mouth.

“Who is that?”

“A very, very old Planeswalker.” He said. “It makes sense with the timeline.”

“What does?”

“A long time ago, when this world was still whole, Planeswalkers weren’t just people. We were gods. Well, not me, it was before my time. Some planeswalkers made entire worlds, and some of them are still worshipped across the planes. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of Serra, but she’s rather big out there. Also dead, but that doesn’t stop people.”

Mary noticed what Illarion didn’t – his rambling was gaining an audience.

“Without constant maintenance,” he sighed, “The worlds they made always fell apart sooner or later. Like I said, what’s happening here is totally natural, an artificial world falling apart after someone or something stopped it being put back together.”

“So,” Silas said, “That’s it, the creator if the world?”

“Excuse me.” Illarion said, “I wasn’t really talking to you. But yes.”

“And he’s dead?”

“Yup.”

“How?”

“Time.” Illarion shrugged. “Gets everything sooner or later.”

The commander scoffed “Well, it won’t get us on my watch. There has to be something here that can be brought back on line.”

“It’s not that simple.” Illarion stopped, and a moment passed. “That would have been a really good time for someone to interrupt, you know. Anyway You don’t have an easy project. Power, knowledge, you’re trying to recreate thousands of years of fine tuning with a demigod for a battery as humans. You might not have the time.”

Another long moment passed, then a shout from the door. One of the guards fell inward, and several robed men filled the space.

“Repent.” The one in the lead said, “For we will not allow you to defy fate!”

Illarion gave a frustrated sigh. “You’re late!” he exclaimed, “and have no sense for the dramatic, did you know that.”

“Silence!”

“Oh, okay.” He growled, “I’m not supposed to be interfering anyway.”

“No.” Mary said, “No, it’s not okay.”

She cast a glance onto the husk in crystal, around the strange room, that was the Eye. She should have stayed home, should have turned back, should have stayed silent. It was hard to believe, but she found that she couldn’t. Most of a day, that was all that had changed, and she couldn’t turn away.

“So, you speak for these preserver defilers.”

“Not for a moment.” Mary replied, “I speak for me.” Her eyes darted around, and she moved carefully towards something that looked like it moved, “And I don’t like your attitude right now.”

“You can leave this place to us, then.”

“I don’t feel like it.” She said, “I rather like this place. You leave.”

The man laughed. “Why?”

“Is it fate you’re on about? If it can be stopped, is it really fate?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Do even the rest of you lot understand? Because when you came to town I didn’t hear a thing about repenting or killing.”

“Is that it.”

“No. Because I don’t know if this can stop the world falling apart or not, but I do know it can stop you.” She grasped the first moving part she could see firmly. “If I pull this, you all meet the void a little early. Poof.” Her heart was racing. Where had she learned to scare people off with an outright lie?

“You’re wasting my time.”

“Do you want to bet on that?” she swallowed hard there wasn’t any room for error. Her hand twisted on the whatever-it-was… and sparks appeared! Crackling energy, around the invaders. Mary glanced quickly towards Illarion, who was leaning against the wall and smirking.

“Well?” Mary asked, “What do you say?”

They fled. The sparks vanished. Mary sighed, and a flurry of questions began, first directed at her and then at each other. Eventually, Illarion pulled her aside.

“I’ve got to say.” He said quietly, “That was brilliant.”

“You helped.” She said.

“So,” he sighed, “I’m going to be getting going soon, I bet you want a ride home.”

“I was thinking about that.” She said

“Me too. You could come with me, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“See the worlds out there, be a tourist.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Just a warning, though.” He said, “This is just about an ordinary day for me.”

“Interfering this much?”

“I’m trying to cut down. So, what do you say?”

“I’m going to pass.”

“Well, let’s… What?”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Mary replied, “But I want this to be an extraordinary day. I don’t know how many more I could take.”

Illarion smiled sadly “Well, then, trip home?”

“And then back here, if you don’t mind. I just want to tell my mom where I’m going to be.”

Two harrowing (though less harrowing than her first) travels later, she was standing outside the Eye of the Void.

“Sure you won’t change your mind?” Illarion asked.

“How about this,” she said, “Check in a month or two and see if I’m bored.”

“I don’t do dates.”

“You can do one.” She insisted.

“I can’t guarantee I’ll be on time.” He said, “So you might be bored for a while.”

“I’m sure I can entertain myself.” She smiled, “You just be sure to show up.”

Illarion looked away. “Well then, I’m not going to say goodbye.” He said, “I’ll be back.”

The planeswalker vanished. No muss, no fuss, no howling dark, and Mary Shaw was standing alone in the night. At least, she thought, she wouldn’t have to worry about having an ordinary day again.