Another earthshake rocked the courtyard, throwing them against each other. The dragons flattened out their necks and whined, looking anxiously from side to side, and as the shaking went on, something odd, some inner prompting, made him look up and across the canal to the central island——the central island. Which was sinking. Or least, the buildings were sinking. Even as he watched, bracing himself against the trembling of the earth, arms holding tight to Aket-ten, a great plume of mixed sand and water erupted from the place where the Tower had stood, and the remains of the Temple of Hamun vanished from sight.

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-ONE

WHEN the shake stopped, Kiron reached out to seize one of the Healers without letting go of Aket-ten. “Where are—” he began.

“The rest of the Jousters have already taken some of our people to safety,” the Healer replied, even though she was shaking with reaction. “They said they are coming back—”

“We cannot count on them returning soon enough, nor often enough to get you all out,” he interrupted her. “You have to get off this ring, maybe out of Alta altogether. The shocks are getting worse and—” He let go of her arm and gestured at the Central Island, at buildings half-sunk or completely vanished. “—Look. I don’t know why this is happening, but it is, and it isn’t—”

Another shake began, he and Aket-ten held each other up, and the water of the canal began to heave and splash. Across the canal a spout of sand and water erupted in a new place, and what was left of the Palace began to sink.

This one was definitely worse. Colonnades around the garden went over, one after another, and several people were knocked off their feet. And the Temple of All Gods had been made to withstand shakes.

“This isn’t right!” the woman cried, when the shake was over, from where she was kneeling on the ground. “They’re getting stronger!”

“And longer. We have to get you out of here.” He thought, hard. “On the water is safest. Have you boats?”

She nodded, relief suffusing her round features. “Enough for everyone, I think, since so many of us have already escaped. And people who know how to row them.” Without waiting for direction, she got to her feet and moved purposefully in the direction of the Healers clustered around Re-eth-ke.

One of them shortly came over to him. “We can get out by water,” he said soberly, “But there are hundreds, thousands of people on this ring.” And he looked at Kiron expectantly.

Kiron blinked, realizing that this man, this Healer—who was by no means an inexperienced man by his age—was looking to him for an answer.