“You Healers by touch can Heal a few, perhaps even a dozen, before you are exhausted,” the old woman said, with a look that dared him to challenge her. “But unless you spend that same strength to heal that dragon, she will not last past noon. And then, where will all those thousands be who will need the guidance of her Jouster?” As the man’s face fell, she softened her tone. “I know it is hard hearing this, Te,” she said softly. “But you know as well as I that Healing is, and always has been, a balancing game, weighing out resources against the greatest good. In the best of times, that balancing never needs to come into play, but this is the worst of times, and we must do what must be done. The greatest good, right now, is to heal that poor, faithful animal, so that she can serve all of Alta that survives.”

He bowed. “Yes, Eldest,” he said softly. “I will get the others.”

As he moved off, the Healer turned back to Kiron and Aket-ten. “And as for you—heed me, children. The same advice—nay, orders!—apply to you. Save the ones you can. Save the most that you can. There will be people trapped, hurt, begging for help that you cannot aid. You must leave them, leave them behind, leave them to others, but leave them. If there is a later, you may come back, but if you linger over one, when you could have saved many in that same time, you will have done the wrong thing.”

He gritted his teeth; he hated hearing that, but he knew it was true, and he silenced Aket-ten’s protest with a squeeze of his hand on hers. “Hard truths are still truths. Eldest, thank you. I will get aloft; I know that when Re-eth-ke is fit to fly, Aket-ten will do likewise, and as we see the others returning, I will send them to do the same.” He squeezed Aket-ten’s hand again, just as another shake began.

This time all three of them instinctively reached for each other and braced one another through the shake. “They are getting worse,” the Eldest Healer said, when the dreadful rumbling and crashing had subsided—and across the canal, yet another building (or what was left of one) had vanished.

“Then I must go.” He bent and kissed Aket-ten. “You and I must separate, to cover the widest area. If the sea does what that Healer thinks it will—you must go to the harbor and warn them first, for you are the daughter of Ya-tiren, and you know how to command.”

Her head came up, though her lower lip trembled a little. “I will do that,” she said, without hesitation. “Then I shall return and work the First Ring and so forth.”