Orla came running back down the column.
She took one look at Rudra, and at the great door standing where the east should have been, and she swore under her breath.
"Stop them," she said. "Stop everyone. Right now. Every step they take is a wrong one."
"I walked straight," Rudra said. "I've held a heading through storms that sank fleets. I walked straight."
"I'm sure you did. It doesn't matter." Orla was scanning the dark. "There's a Strayer out here. It ends direction."
"Ends what?"
"Direction. East, west, forward, back. Inside its ground, none of them mean anything. You think you're walking a line and you're walking a ring." She pointed at the edge of the column. "Look."
Almond looked.
At the far edge, a group of thirty or forty people had peeled away from the rest. They were walking quickly and surely, like people who knew exactly where they were going. They were walking straight out into the empty grass.
