Wait a minute, he thought. I don't feel anything different. The air even smells the same as it did before the vision. Why don't I feel the wind?

this is a simulation. consider it a very good map. you may alter your point of view by concentrating.

There was a feeling like a click behind his eyes, and the scene swooped dizzily. Raj tumbled for a moment before regaining control; it was as if he was a disembodied pair of eyes and ears with the power of flight. Cautiously, he swooped downward. The beautiful ancient buildings lay tumbled, or burning, or shattered in zones of overlapping circles out from the center of the fading ball of flame. He moved until the radius of complete destruction was behind him, watching like a god as little swooping vehicles came to collect the wounded; hideously burned figures writhed or lay still, and the ground-cars that had zipped along the roadways of turf were tumbled like toys, some driven through the fronts of houses.

There must have been a wind like a hurricane, he thought; the scene matched the description of the terrible storms of the far southern Zanj Sea. Fire like the heart of a star, then a killing wind. Raj had received the rudiments of a classical education, despite the pragmatism of his country-gentry family. There was only one thing that fit that description: fusion bomb, the agency of the Fall.

Then other flying cars touched down. He grunted in shock as he recognized the blazon on their sides — a double lightning flash, with the numerals 591 between — the insignia of the 591st Provisional Brigade. The barbarians who held the Old Residence, the original seat of planetary government, on the other side of the Midworld Sea. But those aren't barbarians, he thought dazedly, as the hatches opened and troops stormed forth. He could recognize their arms and armor, too. The clockwork and compressed-air automatons that lined the walls of the Hall of Audience were formed in that shape, and bore such arms. Lines of fire stitched back and forth as other troops in similar gear but bearing the insignia of the Federation Guards charged to meet them.