The Watcher came to the silo before breakfast on the third morning, carrying two stools and the manner of a woman about to teach the only lesson left in her.
"Before you touch another Ring," she said, setting a stool down at the center floor, "we are going to talk about a lock gate on the old river."
The family assembled itself around the walls, because nobody intended to miss this.
"Forty years before I was born, a distributed custodian held the river gate through a flood season," she said, settling onto the second stool unhurried.
"Six bodies, one will, plus the gate survived the worst water in the record."
"One intention," Hajin said. "I have the archive's version."
"You have the archive's version of the intention," she said, tapping the floor once with her staff.
"Now hear the version the custodians told their children, because that is where the actual lesson lived."
"During the flood, the primary body stood on the gate tower, setting the mission," she said.
