Reached

our work over the ports. All communication with other Provinces has ceased. The Rising says that is temporary. The Pilot himself promises that everything will be fine soon.
    It has begun to rain.
    I wonder what it would have been like to see a flash flood in the Carving from up high like this. I’d like to have stood at the edge of the canyon and felt the rumble; closed my eyes to better hear the water; opened them again to see the world laid to waste, the rocks and trees torn and tumbling down. It would have been something to watch what looked like the end of the world.
    Perhaps I am witnessing that now.
    A chime sounds from my kitchen. Dinner has arrived, but I am not hungry. I know what the food will be—emergency rations. We have only two meals each day now. Someday they will run out of the rations, too. And then I don’t know what they’ll do.
    If we start to feel sick and tired, we’re supposed to send a message on the port. Then they’ll come and help us.
But what if you go still while you sleep?
I wonder. The thought makes me lie awake at night. It’s become difficult to find any rest.
    I pull the meal from the delivery slot. There it is, cold and bland and blank, the Society’s stores served to us by the Rising.
    I have learned a few things from the Archivists. Food is running out; therefore, it is valuable. So I’ve used it to trade my way out of my confinement in my apartment. I take the meal out to the Rising guard at the entrance of our building. He’s young and hungry, so he understands.
    “Be careful,” he says, and he holds open the door for me as I slip into the night.

    I feel my way down the stones and steps, my hands brushing against the sides and coming away with the familiar green smell and feel of moss. The recent rain has made things slippery, and I have to concentrate, keeping the beam of my flashlight steady.
    When I reach the end of the hallway, I’m not blinded, the way I usually am. No flashlights flicker onto me, no beams swing in my direction as people notice me coming through the door.
    The Archivists are gone.
    A chill runs up my spine as I remember how this place reminded me of the crypt from the Hundred History Lessons. I close my eyes, imagining the Archivists lying down on the shelves, folding their hands on their chests, holding perfectly still as they wait for death to come.
    Slowly I shine my light on the shelves.
    They are empty. Of course. No matter what, the Archivists will survive. But they didn’t tell me that they were leaving, and I have no idea where they might have gone. Did they leave anything back in the Archives?
    I’m about to go look when I hear feet on the stairs and I spin around, swinging up my flashlight to blind whoever has entered.
    “Cassia?” the voice asks. It’s her. The head Archivist. She came back. I lower the light so she can see.
    “I was hoping to find you,” she says. “Central is no longer safe.”
    “What has happened?” I ask.
    “The rumors about a mutated Plague,” she says, “have been proven to be true. And we’ve confirmed that the mutation has spread here to Central.”
    “So you’ve all run away,” I say.
    “We have all decided to stay alive,” she says. “I have something for you.” She reaches into the pack she carries and pulls out a slip of paper. “This came in at last.”
    The paper is real and old, printed with dark letters pressed deep into the page, not the slick surface blackness of printing from a port. There are two stanzas; the ones I don’t have. Even though time is short and the world is wrong, I can’t help but glance down, greedy, to read a bite, a bit of the poem:
     
    The Sun goes crooked—that is night—
    Before he makes the bend
    We must have passed the middle sea,
    Almost we wish the end
    Were further off—too great it seems
    So near the Whole to stand.
     
    I want to read the rest but I feel the head Archivist’s gaze on me, and I look back up. Something has gone crooked here; night is coming. Am I drawing close to the end? It almost feels like it—that there can’t be much farther to go, having come so far already—and yet nothing feels finished.
    “Thank you,” I say.
    “I’m glad it came in time,” she says. “I’ve never left a trade unfinished.”
    I fold the poem back up and put it in my sleeve. I keep my expression neutral, but I know she’ll hear the challenge in what I’m about to say. “I’m grateful for the poem, but you’ve still left a trade