Moses led the six of them down the road leading away from the Friar’s house. Samantha and Jeremiah followed close to Moses. They kept up with his fast pace, although Samantha had to help Jeremiah at times. She was a strong runner and made it look easy. Ashken looked back but did not see anyone following them. He was not even sure what he was running away from anymore. Moses kept the pace fast, and Ashken worried about Jessica falling behind. He had to resist the urge to pull Jessica by the arm to force her to keep up. She was lagging a bit, falling back almost to where Joseph brought up the rear. Ashken was afraid of what Joseph might do if she fell behind them. Ashken would not abandon her to whoever followed them. Ashken stayed with her and kept encouraging her to keep pace. For all the training Samantha did, Ashken thought ruefully, it was a wonder she never brought her daughter with her.

The streets were still clear of people as they worked their way north and east, heading toward the gated section of the enclave’s walls. It took them well over an hour to arrive at the wall. Moses had slowed the pace down when the Friar’s house was no longer visible. The roads hardened as they passed over less travelled roads, and the movement became faster if not easier. The Friar’s house was much closer to the enclave’s walls than the Liebowitz’s house. But that was all relative, of course.

When they arrived at the wall, Ashken expected to see it swarming with militiamen. If word had gotten out that the walls had been breached, many other outsiders might attempt to enter the enclave. Ashken imagined the outsiders looking upon the enclave as an unspoiled land, replete with resources and food that most of their world outside the enclave lacked. At least, that was how Ashken fantasized about the outsider’s view of Washen’s Enclave. He only had to go on the talk of the traders at the wall and the constant attacks along the wall as reported by the newsboys to know that the outsiders had great interest in entering the enclave.

The wall was deserted when they arrived. The main two gates were locked up and still looked intact. The gates were chained closed and the great bar, which was almost as long as a hundred people standing, was lowered against the gate to stop it from being opened. The great bar was a symbol as much as a deterrent. With the Moderns’ defenses lining the wall, even the great wall itself was more of a deterrent or sign post than something that was needed to protect the enclave. The Moderns’ machines that patrolled the tops of the walls were enough to kill or deter any outsiders from attempting to cross into the enclave. At least, unless someone in the council had disclosed the weak points of these defenses. The gate itself was topped by a cross section of wall. In all of the histories, the walls had never been opened. After the Great War, the gate had been sealed shut when the enclave decided that it was best to have less contact with the outsiders. Smaller gates at different points along the wall were used to trade goods. The smaller gates had multiple locks that allowed goods to be exchanged without being in the same location as outsiders. There was much fear of diseases as well as of invasions along the walls of the enclave.

Moses looked worried. His eyes kept scanning the horizon, first looking back away from him, and then out and across the gate, looking to see who if anyone was following them, and where the next attack would come from. There was no attack, however. There were no people heading in their direction. And from what he could see through the gate, there were no outsiders milling about, threatening or otherwise. Everything was quiet at the wall. It was difficult to know what went on out of view of the gate. Ashken knew that the outsiders would probably not mass near the gate, instead selecting the weak points of the wall to gain entrance. It would too easy of the militiamen with shooters to hold the gated area, and Ashken was sure the outsiders would know of that threat.

It was strange to Ashken to be able to get this close to the wall. The militiamen were under strict orders to keep people away from the walls. They warned the people of the Moderns’ machines that patrolled the tops of the walls to keep the outsiders out. These same machines, the militiamen had told them, would not differentiate between a friend and foe. Anyone trying to climb the walls would be treated equally. That alone had kept Ashken and the rest of the people off the tops of the walls. But without the militiamen at the base of the wall, the warnings seemed hollow and unnecessary. He had seen militiamen climb to the top of the walls. Clearly there was a way up there and a way to look out and check on the progress of the outsiders.

“Things are quiet here,” Moses said. He looked worried by that statement, as if he expected more activity. Ashken felt the same way. There was a silence that he tried to attribute to the moments before the storm. But it was different. He did not feel a storm coming—at least not the storm as he knew a storm in its figurative sense. It was a different feeling, a feeling of a reality failing and another one clicking into place.

The posts along the gate and wall looked abandoned. Ashken tried to look up and over the wall in both directions and he saw nothing. Even up close, he could not see the Moderns’ machines that patrolled the tops of the wall. They were there, he knew, from the vivid descriptions the militiamen and council members gave the people. It was what protected the enclave from the outsiders. A staircase led up to the top of the wall. It was strange that there was a staircase that nobody would use. Some council members claimed to have climbed to the top. He did not understand how the Moderns’ machine patrolling the top could differentiate between a council member and an outsider, if the same machines could not differentiate between an outsider and a native of the enclave. There were too many questions he did not understand about the wall.

With no militiamen to stop him, and with the full authority he felt he now possessed as at least an acting council member taking the place of his father on the council, Ashken started climbing the stairs. He was not sure if it was curiosity or dread that brought him up the stairs, but he needed to see what waited for the enclave outside the wall. He also needed the height to survey the damage already done to the enclave. He would evaluate the state of the Moderns’ machines that guarded the enclave, and whether they would be up to the task to repel any invaders. He also needed to help plan the counterattack to drive the outsiders away from the enclave. Moses would need the information. With it, he could work with the militiamen—at least the militiamen that remained loyal to the council. After what he saw at the Friar’s house, he was no longer certain how many militiamen that would be.

Ashken took the first few steps up the staircase and heard footsteps behind him. He looked back and saw Jeremiah climbing the stairs behind him. It seemed he had similar ideas. It would be better to talk out the next steps with someone else, someone who would understand the political maneuvers of the council. Moses would have to be involved with the military decisions, but Jeremiah could help explain the political molasses that had settled on the council. He might also be able to understand what was going on in the council, who had ordered the attacks on Deidre and his father. It was almost too much for Ashken to think about alone. He needed trusted counsel, and Jeremiah would have to provide that.

Ashken climbed the inner stair that led up to the top of the stone wall. Once up there, the wall would afford him the view over the plains that surrounded the enclave. Jeremiah followed him a few steps behind. Halfway up, he heard Jeremiah breathing heavily. He realized it was a long climb, and that they had been running for the better part of the last hour to make it to the wall. He still felt the adrenaline in his body, and he continued his trek to the top of the wall. Things would be clearer with more altitude. Many problems can be solved with just a bit of perspective, his father had once taught him.

When he arrived at the top of the wall, he was amazed by the sight. The wall was truly huge and tall. It provided a view of most of the enclave and out far into the distance outside the enclave. Ashken had never seen something so grand and beautiful. It had taken him the better part of thirty minutes to climb the wall. He looked down and saw Jessica and Moses talking at the base of the wall. They looked tiny from the top, miniature people. After he got over the distance and size of his surroundings, he looked down the wall in both directions. He expected to see Moderns’ machines patrolling the tops of the walls, ready to fight off any outsider or council member who tried to climb or breach the walls. Looking down over the wall, Ashken realized how silly the notion of someone breaching the wall really was. The outside of the wall was at such an angle that the top part jutted further out than the bottom. Because of the angle, Ashken did not see how anyone could climb the wall without a rope hanging from the top. Such a rope would have to be incredibly long to reach far enough down to offer a way up. The only thing Ashken could think of was perhaps there were weak points along the base of the wall. From the top, it was impossible to see much of the wall.

The top of the wall was empty as well. He looked down first one direction and then the other and did not see a single Moderns’ machine. This was strange indeed. At first he thought he was missing something. The Moderns’ machines were sometimes very small and sometimes very big. It would be easy to miss them if they were not of the appearance he had expected. There were even some machines that appeared invisible at certain angles. Ashken walked and examined the walls carefully, walking many feet in each direction to try and determine what if there were any Moderns’ machines along the tops of the walls. It became apparent rather quickly that there really was nothing up there. That the top of the wall was not populated by Modern’s machines, as had been taught down in the enclave. He wondered what protected the enclave, if anything. There was much he still had to learn about the walls. And he sat on the stone ground and waited for Jeremiah. He at least would be able to explain what was going on here.

He watched the sun slowly fall down over the sky as he waited for Jeremiah to climb to the top of the stairs. After the halfway mark, Jeremiah had fallen further behind, his initial energy gone. The top of the wall afforded Ashken time to think about what had happened and to consider his next move. He wished he understood more about the enclave and its politics. There was not much he could do about his lack of knowledge now, though. He would have to be a quick student.

Word count: 2,017

Words remaining: 20,718 (words so far: 29,272)

Thoughts: The blank page scares me today. I have to stand up to it. I’m bigger, stronger, and by golly it’s not going to scare me. Not again. Can’t I just kill all my characters in a large fire and be done with this badly thought-out, worse-ly written story? Isn’t that how all happy endings happen? Okay. I’m going to start writing now. Enough of this white page staring. That’s 69 words I wish I had written for my story. Help! It’s still not happening. Agh, this is going to be another one of those days with another one of those bad sections that don’t make any sense (unlike the rest of my nonsensical story). I was very tired when I finished writing this. I was out late, and I wasn’t able to finish it earlier as I had planned. Some of the plot points kept changing—I’m sorry for the inconsistency to my one reader. I do have an idea about where this is going, but I made some wrong choices along the way. Who am I kidding? I have no idea what I’m talking about anymore. I’m just trying to make my word count. I’ve given up on this whole notion of “coherency” and “storytelling.” Now I’m all about word count. If two words make sense together, consider that sentence a good one. Unlucky 13.