Rath started running across the boulevard towards the Section Clinic, but a sudden upward surge of the floor underneath his feet brought him to a stop.

The surge was steady but inexorable.

Stunned, he worried about the Bridges, but as the seconds passed he sensed no disruption of the magic. The drain on his physical energy was constant.

Then, just as inexorably, the floor settled back and The Wall became still once more.

“DUE TO INTERFERENCE FROM ANOTHER BODY, THE REMOVAL TO ORBIT HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY ABORTED. THE REMOVAL WILL BE RE-INITIATED IN TWO HOURS. PATRONS SHOULD MAKE ALL NECESSARY PREPARATIONS. DUE TO THE ONGOING NATURE OF THE EMERGENCY, ALL EXTERNAL CONNECTIONS AND EXITS HAVE BEEN SEALED. PLEASE PLAN ACCORDINGLY.”

Rath ran on towards the Section Clinic chamber doors. Aron should be there. Fhaeyr could not be far; the chaos of Cantonment Fourteen had erased any thought of returning to The Wall to create the planned Bridge that would have carried him and his scout group to the northern farms.

Vice-Exarch Llylm stayed close with him, following automatically, but he did not slow to wait for her.

Confusion reigned everywhere; The Wall had never moved on its own and few, if any of the people Rath ran passed would have any idea what was happening. He doubted that the news that he had sent of The Factory’s escape could have spread very far from the circle of organizers headed by Aron and Fhaeyr in the scant few hours since it had happened.

Four well-armed Blades guarded the Section Clinic entrance, but were simply off to the side and were not actively managing the small queue of patients, many of whom had family members assisting them. A pair of medtechs in standard uniforms, one blue and one white, were triaging the patients — an incidentally now trying to calm some that had been unsettled by the announcements and the movement of The Wall.

Rath had no idea what the medtech uniform colors meant; he spoke to the woman in white, who he had not met though she obviously recognized him. “Where is Aron?”

“Conference room! Down the main corridor, left, then left again! Door is marked with a sign!”

The Blades saluted as he went through the entrance.

Rath dashed along the path described, Vice-Exarch Llylm in dogged pursuit, passing startled patients, medtechs, and volunteers, and found the compartment.

When he burst through the door, everyone jumped up from the long table: Fhraeyr, Aron, Aunt Cyhrin, Ylyryl, and half a dozen more, most of whom Rath had not met. There were medtechs, Blade officers, and a few others without uniform or insignia to identify them. The clothing of one older woman marked her as clearly Monitor.

“We’re run out of time,” Aron said immediately, his expression grim.

“The Wall can’t leave because of The Tower,” Rath said. “Until The Tower is moved, The Wall cannot follow The Factory.”

Fhaeyr waved his hand in a sharp gesture. “We have to find a way to move The Tower. We can’t stay on Refuge. The Tremors are getting more frequent by the hour. I think the world is coming apart.”

Ylyryl, standing at Fhaeyr’s side, only watched and listened. At the Cantonment, she had been just as he had always known her, a disciplined Amazon sergeant, following orders, accomplishing tasks, commanding subordinates.

Here, she seemed just Ylyryl, a young woman caught up like the rest of them in the end of the world.

“Freeing The Wall from The Tower may be impossible,” Aron pointed out. “We have no way to physically move it.”

“Some part of The Tower is still alive,” Rath said. “I’ve seen it try to move under its own power. If we can fix or repair its systems, it could right itself. But we need more time to save as many people as possible. There are still thousands of Custodians and millions of Monitors in the Outside.”

“If we wait too long, everyone in The Wall will die with Refuge,” Aunt Cyhrin said without emotion. The Monitor Elder was just stating a fact.

Rath grimaced. “Right now, we don’t have the ability to move The Tower. We still have to figure out how to fix it. That delay gives us the opportunity to bring in more people and we have to keep that up for as long as we can.”

Rath looked around the room. Everyone was waiting for him to continue.

“Aron, find someone to take over the Section Clinic. I want you to focus exclusively on researching The Tower. We need to find everything the Index knows about it, no matter how obscure.”

He paused and decided at this stage that his reasons for concealing his Talent Ahbytdalld were now utterly meaningless.

“I’ve been inside. I used Ahbytdalld to get out. I can make a Bridge to get us in and out. We can study it and work on it easily.”

He paused for a few seconds. There was no discernible reaction. Everyone was just listening.

“The Tower tried to raise up while I was there, so it still must be capable of movement. We have to figure out what we have to do to get it to right itself and free The Wall. We’ll need a team of maintenance personnel. My cousin Sym for one. As soon as we’re ready — at least in a few hours — we’ll make a quick first trip inside The Tower. Aron, get that ready. I want Sym and three other maintenance personnel that are system qualified. There are terminals inside The Tower. It must have something like the Index. That’s where we’ll start. Fhaeyr, I need your scout group to move out as soon as you can assemble. I’ll make a Bridge to the northern farms and go with you to make a return Bridge. Get people moving into The Wall. Farm goods are secondary now.”

Fhaeyr nodded, already moving towards the door. “On it.” He went out. Ylyryl moved with him and just nodded at Rath as she went by.

It was clear that she was with Fhaeyr now. Whatever impediments had existed before between them now also no longer mattered.

Aron pointed to the Monitor Elder that Rath had noted. “Elder Zhenviehve can take over the Clinic right now. She’s a fully qualified medtech with a specialization in child birth and was administrator of the clinic in Cantonment Fourteen before she retired.”

“Perfect.”

“I’ll need some scholars to help me. I know three that I can get right away.”

“Keep it small unless it looks like you need more.”

“Right. Glad to have you back, Rath.”

“Thanks, Aron. It’s worse in the Outside than I expected. Cantonment Fourteen was completely leveled.”

“I know several people that lived there,” Aunt Cyhrin said, showing concern.

Rath shook his head. “The casualties are high.”

Aunt Cyhrin let out a slow breath. “All the survivors are coming here?”

“Elder Mhagtyr set up an organization before the tremors to organize the evacuation. I’ll set up four Bridges at the assembly points at dawn to bring all who can be extracted. Bear Lineage has control at the Training Complex and several thousand people are there. I haven’t contacted them yet, so I don’t know if they will come.”

Aunt Cyhrin’s eyes grew tight. “I can recruit some volunteers who have already come from the city as a delegation to speak with Bear.”

“Have them be ready to leave an hour before dawn. The Training Complex is one of the assembly points so I’ll go there first.”

“They will be ready,” Aunt Cyhrin said as she made her way to the door.

The remaining people in the room, one by one, came to stand before Rath. Each introduced themselves, gave their current assignment and responsibilities, and then departed.

Rath listened and shook hands but was at a loss for anything to say.

The people were all Seniors or Elders from his perspective, all were volunteers, all were from either Aron’s Clan or Fhaeyr’s Clan, and all were skilled in organizing the various tasks needed to turn an idle Section into an occupied one: billeting, food distribution, maintenance, transport, and more.

When the last person had gone, Vice-Exarch Llylm said, “And the people came before him in the lanes and byways, because he had no throne and no court.”

Rath looked askance. “That’s a quote?”

“From a story in a book that my ancestor brought through the Summer Door to Refuge. The name of the story was The Uncrowned King.”

Rath looked at her for a couple of seconds and then moved on. “Can you take command of all the Shields here in L24 Fifth?”

“I can and I will, whatever it takes, but I don’t know what that means.”

“What? L24 Fifth?”

She nodded.

“That’s Level Twenty-Four and the Fifth Section. The count goes from bottom to top and from east to west. There are fifty Levels and each Level has fifty sections. We’ll find someone to act as a guide for you.”

Vice-Exarch Llylm shook her head. “I can figure it out. I served a year in The Factory. The tech and facilities should be the same.” She came to attention and saluted. “I have my orders. I’ll take my leave, Magister.”

In another moment, Rath was standing alone in the room.

He stood there for a few seconds, then also went out.

As he made his way out of the Clinic, he could not help but take note of the looks cast his way by the busy staff and the patients. Most of the latter were injured Monitors from Cantonment Fourteen, though here or there he saw a Custodian child with a sprain or a cough. No one confronted him, no one intercepted him with a question, and no one rushed to beg anything of him. They just looked.

When he emerged from the Clinic, his steps slowed as he tried to think of where he was supposed to go next.

With mild shock, he realized that he had nothing that he must do that very moment and therefore had nowhere to go. He had just delegated every urgent aspect of the evacuation and the investigation of The Tower to the others. Until Fhaeyr and his scout group were ready to go, there was no one that had need of his Talents. His four Bridges in Cantonment Fourteen were still in place, but took no active management. When Aea reported, he could shut down the two in the courtyard of her family’s residence, but that would only take a thought.

Wandering to the median, he stood looking up and down the boulevard for a moment. Some two dozen meters away, the attendants at the rope-cordoned feet of the Bridges from Cantonment Fourteen were standing idle; no survivors were coming through at the moment. There were few other people about. Even with Aron’s Clan and the couple of thousand Monitors that had come from the Cantonment so far, the Section was still mostly empty. With no kiosks open and all the shop and restaurant compartments vacant still, the area seemed desolate.

He sat down on one of the benches. His feet hurt, his legs were wobbly, and he was thoroughly tired. He would have to find something to eat next, and if possible locate Wy to ask her about the Final Bastion and incidentally just spend some time with her, but for now he thought he would just sit and rest.

Not much later, a shuttle arrived at the platform further along the boulevard to the west, answering Rath’s unvoiced question as to whether the Index had shut down the interior shuttle lines.

Expecting perhaps some of Fhaeyr’s Clan members, Rath was startled when several squads of Blades exited the shuttle.

He jumped to his feet when he recognized the man who, in the company of several other Custodian Nation adminstrators, exited next.

Clearly leading the entire group was Administrator Jhaercgh.