A long crack opened in the middle of the processional path, twenty feet from where he stood.
The great grey flagstones that had stayed joined for two centuries simply drifted apart, the grout between them turning to white powder as a three-inch gap ran straight through the courtyard and disappeared into the brush.
A blast of dry heat came up from the split earth, smelling of scorched tin and old lard. And with the heat came the noise—the grinding of the world's gears that he had felt in his teeth down below.
But the rhythm had broken. It would run smooth for three strokes, then stop with a dull thud, then catch up with a double click, like an old mill wheel with three teeth missing from the axle.
In the reddish woods beyond the stone wall, the silence had broken too. The fire beasts weren't staying still in the shadows anymore.
